


Not All Monsters are Legends

by AuntieNadeshiko (Haurvatat)



Series: Carry On My Wayward Demigod 'Verse [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Supernatural
Genre: Hurt!Percy, Kidnapping, Multi, Protective!Daddy!Poseidon, Sick!Percy, percabeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:12:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haurvatat/pseuds/AuntieNadeshiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy is very badly ill when he's drugged and stolen from his home by a psychopath. He also can't say that he expected to be saved by two more psychopaths. That doesn't mean his troubles are over - far from it, actually.  Cross-over land, here we come.</p><p>Hurt!Sick!Percy, Protective!Daddy!Poseidon, obligatory Percabeth.  Swearing. Violence and references to non-con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Lose What Little Street Cred I Ever Had

Percy

All right. So. I keep forgetting that every time the seasons change, I start coughing up my lungs. Like, it genuinely slips my mind right up until I've been coughing for three days straight, and that's when the lightbulb moment finally happens. Oh, it's that time of year again, is it? So it is. When did that happen? I'm a dumbass, if any further clarification is necessary at this point.

That winter/spring transition, though, it was worse than it had ever been before. Sometimes I just cough a lot. Sometimes I cough so much my voice gives out until I can't do anything more than wheeze out something high-pitched and breathy. Sometimes my stomach actually gets irritated and I get stuck in the bathroom heaving my guts out and hoping Mom doesn't notice, because she'd probably take me to see a doctor when I know perfectly well that I'll be fine in an hour. Sure, the whole part where this happens four times a year is a little worrying, but I can deal. It couldn't be that serious. Also, I've always been pretty accustomed to taking care of my own problems. Spend enough of your time without friends at private schools where everyone, including the faculty, hates you and I'm sure you'll start taking care of your own problems, too. A couple of Advil, a mountain of cough drops, and I'm all set for the seasonal switchover.

Most of the time.

Are we remembering the part where I, Percy Jackson, am a dumbass?

Good. It's important you keep that in mind.

So that seasonal change, I coughed like crazy the first couple of days, just like normal. On about the eighth day, when the coughing normally peters out, I hadn't gotten even a little better. I had a 103 degree fever, which I certainly hadn't told Mom about, and my voice was wearing pretty thin. I hadn't upchucked yet, so there was that. So much for little blessings. It was also Spring Break, so at least I didn't have to, gods forbid, socialise while slowly dying inside. Still was going to avoid seeing the doctor, though. I make some truly awesome life decisions.

I shuffled out of my room, dragging my comforter with me. No way was I going to give up that safe haven of warm softness. The floor of the kitchen was vinyl and cold as anything in the mornings, whether spring was on its way or not. Unfortunately, the comforter did not protect my feet, and it always creeped me out to sleep with socks on, so… I had to bear with it. I abducted some poptarts and a banana (the potassium's good for fevers, right?) and a can of hashbrowns. I didn't want to get up for a very long time, and I was going straight back to my room to eat them. If I got crumbs everywhere, so be it. A small price to pay for comfort.

And so that was how I spent my morning: eating crap food in my room while reading a book in Greek that Annabeth gave me. Well, I had it on loan. No way was Annabeth going to let me actually take one of her books for keeps. I'd seen her reaction when someone so much as touched her books without permission before, and I'd frankly rather take a nap in one of Cerberus's mouths than incite her wrath.

On the fiftieth page (and I never got tired of how my dyslexia seemed to vanish when the words were all Greek), the shitstorm hit me. The minute I felt the coughing fit coming on, I shut Annabeth's book firmly. No germs on her pristine pages; no, sir.

My chest spasmed as it grabbed hold of my lungs and squeezed. Every last part of my body shook and jerked as I seized up, choking on whatever was in my lungs, drowning me in ways water never could. My throat hated me so much, but there was nothing I could do. I could feel the veins on my neck standing out, my vision whiting out occasionally into television snow with each new coughing fit. The fever just compounded issues. Every time my body moved too quickly, whether the action was voluntary or not, the room spun. The dizziness didn't help with the nausea, and my choice of breakfast wasn't doing me any favours, either.

It finally subsided, or came as close to subsiding as it ever did. Small, weak coughs still tore from my throat. If I could just take a nap or something, I could almost pretend that it would all be over with when I woke up. Page fifty-one would just have to wait.

I drifted off for a while there. I hadn't been looking at the clock, so I had no idea how long I'd been out, but I felt every bit as nasty as I had before. So much for that whole "sleep-is-the-best-medicine" theory.

Then I realised that I hadn't woken up on my own. My own senses had me on high alert.

Something was rattling the front door. I could hear the creaky hinge all the way in my room. I already knew it wasn't Mom just because she never took this long to get the key in the lock, but a quick glance at the clock confirmed that she was still supposed to be at work. Just my freaking luck. A monster comes to call right when I'm sick, still sleepy, and miserable. Stellar.

I sat up and tried to stave off the dizziness. I peered around, looking for Riptide. It was right on my nightstand where I'd put it. See, the boxer shorts I normally slept in didn't have pockets, making it a bit of a challenge for Riptide to zap itself into one. No monster had ever targeted me in my sleepwear before, so I hadn't thought it would be too much of a problem. My foresight was never as awesome as I wanted people to think it was.

Much as I hated to do so, I abandoned the warmth of my blanket, gripping an uncapped Riptide and opening the door to my room a crack. I could just see into the kitchen from where I was, but the front door was still obscured. I opened the door a little wider, encouraged by the lack of claws embedded in my door.

As far as I could tell, no-one was in the apartment but me. Everything was right where it had been earlier. The door wasn't rattling anymore, and looked very comfortable sitting on its hinges, as though it had never been disturbed. Monsters generally didn't let silly things like locked doors get in their way. Maybe it had gone for reinforcements and then would come back later to break down my door. Well, I'd be ready for the sonuvabitch, keeping an eye glued to the peephole for when it returned. Then I could lop off its head and go back to sleep. A solid plan if ever there was one.

I walked as steadily as I could out of my doorway, heading for the front entrance.

I wish to the gods I hadn't.

Thick arms wrapped around me from behind, locking my arms by my sides. I tensed immediately, letting out a hoarse yell and trying to jerk out of its grip. I struggled for a while, but getting my arms away from my sides just wasn't going to work. It occurred to me that it didn't have to. Instead of trying to wield Riptide, I jammed my elbow backwards into the thing's ribcage. It spat a curse and its grip loosened just enough for me to kick myself free.

I eyed my stealthy attacker. It looked human enough, but I'd been fooled by the Mist before and I would be again. It looked like a balding white guy, maybe in his late 30s. Dark eyes. Fingernails that had been gnawed to the quick. About three layers of shirts and undershirts, most of them some unfortunate plaid-like print, with a faded green army jacket atop them all. Stained blue jeans and thick brown work boots that had seen better days. The look in its eyes, though… half enraged and half hungry… I was spooked. There was a fevered gleam in them that I'd never seen in a monster's eyes before. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin that also had me off-balance. He might have looked half-respectable with a shower (or three), some decent clothes, and a night's sleep to his credit, but in that moment, he looked like an axe murderer from one of those cop shows Mom used to watch until I made the mistake of telling her that the blood didn't arc like that when you hit an artery.

I wasted no more time and stabbed out with Riptide, aiming between his third and fourth ribs. I wasn't going to take any chances with a slashing motion, which almost never did any real damage. I felt my blood freeze as it passed right through him – with no resistance.

He was mortal.

How-?

But…

I just sort of stood there, frozen, blinking like the idiot I was. I watched a smile grow on the man's face. It wasn't a pleasant look on him.

"A pen's not gonna help you much, kid." Shit, this guy couldn't even see through the Mist. He really was just a normal person… except he'd made it very clear that there was nothing normal about him. "Get over here," he growled, and lunged for me again.

Still trying to recover myself, I didn't get braced properly, and that was what lost me the short wrestling match. I'd never been good at wrestling at camp and after figuring out that my talents lay with swordsmanship, I'd never seen a reason to learn. Bad move.

The man used his wider stance to throw me backwards into the corner of the coffee table. I let out a weak, sharp cry and just sort of let myself crash to the ground. The room spun, my fever making all the sudden movements a nightmare for my equilibrium. Still, oak corners stabbing into your spinal column is a terrifying thing even when you're perfectly healthy.

The man got down on one knee next to me, grabbing my wrists and pinning them to the side with one hand. With the other, he quickly fished a rag of some kind out of his jacket pocket. My eyes got huge when I saw it. It had to be chloroform. When your mom watches cop shows, you learn about crap like that. "Shhh, just stay still. It's all gonna be over real soon…" He pressed it to my face, despite my whipping my head back and forth to try to throw the son of a bitch off of me. I couldn't help it. It was hard enough to breathe deeply as it was, my throat and lungs as weak as they were, and I needed every breath. I couldn't afford to hold my breath, and probably couldn't for long even if I had tried. I breathed the noxious chemical in before I even knew what had happened, and felt myself fall into the black.

\--

I awoke to the sensation of fingers running through my hair. It felt nice, and my head hurt, so I welcomed it. There were worse ways to wake up. I must have leaned into it, or made a noise, or shifted, or something, because the gruff voice I vaguely remembered as _godsnobadrunhurtpainscared_ started talking right next to me.

"Finally up and about? That's good. Got plans for you, boy."

I jerked up. I had no idea what I planned to accomplish with that, but I found myself hindered by ropes binding my arms and ankles to four separate bedposts, all of my movements brought to an abrupt and unforgiving halt, wrenching every muscle and joint at once. My spine also felt like one solid bruise, and informed me so loudly.

"No, my boy. Can't have that. No moving around before I want you to," the man said, wagging a finger at me.

"I'm not your anything," I spat. It would have been a lot more impressive if it hadn't come out like a high-pitched whisper of air, or if I hadn't launched into an awful, further back-wrenching bout of coughing. Like I needed my voice to be any more wrecked. I probably gave myself whiplash and couldn't even move to cover my mouth, what with my arms out of commission. When it was over, I was worse than before, weaker and shakier and barely able to perceive my surroundings. My fever had also probably spiked a little higher. It felt that way, anyway. Some remote part of my brain that sounded like a mix of Annabeth and Clarisse happily informed me that if it went much higher, I'd risk permanent brain damage or death.

Eventually, I processed the sound I was hearing: my kidnapper was chuckling to himself. "Oh, man," he said. "That's a good one." Suddenly he was so close I could smell him, his nose almost brushing mine, one of his grubby hands iron-tight on my jaw. "You listen here, boy. You belong to me. You can whine and bitch and moan and deny it all you want, but it's true, and it always will be. You belong to me. All of you." His eyes flicked downward and a chill grabbed hold of me. "You are mine. All mine. Try to escape and I'll have to show you just how much I own you. You got it?"

I couldn't make my mouth or throat work, and even if I could have, I never would have answered. Well, not in a way he'd appreciate, at least.

"You got it?" he screamed, shaking me like a rag doll. A small, involuntary noise came out of my abused throat that he must have taken as an affirmative, because he let my jaw go, stepping back. "Good. If you're a good boy, I might bring you food later. Might."

\--

Annabeth

When you are a demigod with prophetic dreams and a wealth of battle experience to lend your instincts credence, you tend to just go with whatever your gut tells you to do. Ignoring it gets you or others killed. This is why, when my gut told me that I should go over to Percy's place, I put on pants and went without ever second-guessing it.

I hailed a taxi and told him the address, hoping the oncoming rush hour traffic wouldn't snarl the roads too badly. My fingers brushed over the bills in my pocket. Percy might have to lend me a couple dollars for the trip back home, much as I hated it.

The closer we got, the more my stomach tightened up. I had no idea what it was doing or why, but I could guess. How many times do demigods get foreboding feelings and then have it turn out to be all daisies and sunshine? Never. At the same time… Percy was invincible from Achilles's curse. What exactly could be strong enough to threaten him? Certainly nothing I could help him with. Not to mention, if something truly awful and terrible and powerful and all that were on the loose, I'm pretty sure I'd see some signs of it. New York was not that large a city, and Titans and gods stumbling about were pretty hard to miss, given their proclivity to some showy displays of power wherever they went.

When the cab stopped, I basically just chucked the cash at the driver and ran full-tilt into the street. That knot in my gut had only tightened.

I must have been on complete auto-pilot, because I found myself in front of the Jackson apartment's door with no memory of having made the trip. I wasn't complaining. With a yank, I threw the door open, noting with further panic that it had been unlocked. That never meant anything good. Percy knew better than to leave the front door unlocked. So did his mother. That damn knot in my stomach again.

At first, nothing seemed wrong. Well, visually, at least. There still seemed to be a faint foreboding atmosphere. I would have thought I'd imagined it all if I hadn't known better.

But there. The coffee table was out of place. Just by a hair, but I'm cursed with a photographic memory at the weirdest of times.

And there. A blanket thrown over the couch that I knew damn well belonged in Percy's room. Percy's room. The door was thrown wide. Percy didn't leave his door open any more than he left the front door unlocked. It just didn't happen.

I made a beeline for the open door and peered around Percy's room for anything out of place. I paled when I saw the sheer volume of medication that had been piled up on the nightstand. Pepto-Bismol, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, various flavours of cough medicine, and cough drops liberally scattered throughout. A nearly-empty box of tissues propped up next to his pillow. Empty glasses of water. A glass thermometer.

I could just see it all, like a puzzle that only made sense when the whole thing was put together.

Percy, sick as a dog and weak as a limp noodle, trying anything to get rid of his awful illness. His mother fetching him new glasses of water when he needed them to take his pills. Percy being too weak to bring the empty ones back to the kitchen sink. Old cough medicines tasting terrible, so new ones laying out to be tried. A bedridden Percy who was cursing his own immune system six ways from Sunday. Something catching his attention outside his room. Something clearly alarming enough to convince him to leave his bed – maybe the adrenaline rush being enough to help him up.

My feet retraced what I thought Percy's steps might have been.

Some kind of tussle. Someone attacking Percy. The blanket Percy took with him getting thrown to the side. The coffee table experiencing some sort of collision with either the attacker or Percy. I sincerely hoped it was the former. But then, I didn't think Percy would be missing if he'd gotten a one-up on his opponent. And, in his shape, adrenaline would only get him so far, demigod or no.

Was it a monster? They generally didn't clean up behind themselves, or move coffee tables back to where they used to be. They also didn't take the time to pick locks, and the front door certainly hadn't been busted in when I got here.

It had to be a human. That, or another demigod. Someone who would have had to use the door, but not had either the brute strength or the guts to just kick the thing in. The thing was, Percy would not investigate something sketchy without Riptide. Demigods would be susceptible, and however weak Percy was, Riptide would be just as sharp as ever. Some blood would be scattered around – there'd be no time to clean it up if a demigod were in the middle of a kidnapping.

A human. Percy had been kidnapped by a human. Riptide would be useless. Percy's illness would keep him from fighting back with his fists or feet. His morals would keep him from fighting with any supernatural powers.

I think that right about there, my brain shut down. Monsters were frightening, but predictable, and nobody had any qualms about running them through with a sword, knife, or whatever was handy. Humans… humans were something different entirely. Humans were cruel. They would tear you apart in ways monsters couldn't even imagine. The things humans did to each other were horrifying, and I'd seen enough of New York City to know that sometimes things slipped through the cracks. People. Criminals. Victims. They all just slipped through the cracks and nobody cared. Not enough to do anything, anyway. All I could picture were all of those headlines I'd ever seen in the newspapers, or on milk cartons: "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?" or "LOCAL CHILD MISSING: NO SUSPECTS RETURNED" or "TEENAGER'S BODY FOUND! SERIAL KILLER STRIKES AGAIN".

I had sat down on the couch, clutching Percy's blanket under my fingers. I was shaking all over. I couldn't cry. I was just kind of frozen, emotionally. I don't know how to explain it. Probably the shock, I suppose.

It might have been minutes or hours later, but Percy's mother Sally wandered through the front door I'd never bothered closing, bewildered. When she saw me, she calmed a little, straightening.

"Annabeth! We weren't expecting you! I would have put something together for you two if I'd known you were coming. Did Percy call you over? Bet he's bored out of his mind in…" Her voice trailed off and even without ever looking at her face, I knew she was making connections.

Percy's agape bedroom door.

Me sitting on her couch alone, clutching Percy's blanket like it was my one lifeline.

The whole part where Percy was nowhere to be found.

I dimly heard the groceries crash to the floor and a choked whimper of something I couldn't make out.

I think that was what jolted me out of my emotional limbo, actually. My pain was something foreign and removed from the rest of me. Hers stabbed into me like a volley of arrows tipped in poison. Suddenly I was angry. I wanted to throw things out of the windows and scream curses to the sky, slitting the throat of whoever had touched my… my… Well. 'Boyfriend' sounded too trivial. 'Lover' sounded too soap-opera-y. Whatever he was, he was mine. They touched what was mine.

And I was going to kill them slowly for it, whoever they were, mortal or no.

\--

Percy

It occurred to me a while later that I couldn't be in the main part of New York. We had to be somewhere out in the less populated parts of the city, where my kidnapper's frequent screaming would go unnoticed. I also had to conclude that the guy wasn't here much, because he kept running into what little furniture there was like he wasn't familiar with the layout of the… house? Cabin? Apartment? I had no idea. That, or he was just blind as a bat. I doubted that one, though, because the looks he gave me were piercing, unwavering, unblinking. Eerie as all Tartarus. I got a major "Silence of the Lambs" feeling from the son of a bitch.

The heating was also either turned off entirely or just really sucky. At first I'd thought maybe it was the fever talking, but when I saw my fingernails turn bluish purple, there wasn't much room for doubt. Of all my health problems at the moment, I really didn't need hypothermia added to the list. Some part of me had already started making a list of all the things that could go wrong and just accepting that all of them, with my luck, would go wrong. Murphy's Law, right?

I was pretty sure I could get free of this guy in a heartbeat in normal circumstances. As it was, with my eyesight swimming and my equilibrium a fond memory, I'd be lucky to be half so coordinated as my clumsy host. I'd knock crap over, make noise, get the guy's attention when I was supposed to be being sneaky. Yeah, that'd work out great. That was also something that normally would not be a problem. Normally, this guy's hand-to-hand combat would probably be pathetic compared to mine. Yeah, okay, I might have sucked bong water at wrestling at Camp Half-Blood, but I was wrestling against demigods. Slightly overweight white guys out of suburban New York were another story altogether, I'd wager, not that I'd ever challenged one while healthy.

I freely admit it. I was rambling in my head, trying to distract from the raging nausea. I hadn't tossed my cookies, for which I could only thank my anxiety which kept all my organs clamped tightly in place.

So I couldn't escape. I couldn't beat this guy into the ground like normal. Riptide was useless unless I was feeling that seppuku vibe, and y'know? Not so much. Actually, the thought made me sick. Moreso, that is. What did he want with me? Men don't just drug and abduct teenagers from their homes for no reason. That annoyingly logical and increasingly loud portion of my brain kept reciting recent headlines about a serial rapist/killer in the New York area. Young men ages 10 to about 17 had been going missing only to show up later in a back alley, or a subway station bathroom, or put out with the trash in a dumpster, all with marks of heavy beatings and multiple rapes before the killing blow of a knife to the gut, which ensured a slow death as the stomach acids ate through the rest of their internal organs. I was too freaked about it to consider the gross factor. Four victims in three months and he hadn't been caught yet. That logical part of my brain was telling me I'd just found him. Or rather, he'd found me.

I was scared. Monsters in monster form, I can fight. Monsters in human form are tougher. Titans might not play by all the rules, but they at least skirt them a bit. I just couldn't stop thinking about how my captor was probably going to try to do things to me that… No. I just… I couldn't. I wasn't going to let him if he tried.

I was trying to shrink away. I really was. Trying not to draw attention to myself.

That didn't work so well. Coughs wracked my body still, getting more frequent as my last dose of medicine began wearing off. Okay, so it had been six or seven hours since I'd been taken. Six or seven hours in this cold, dank, decrepit excuse for a dwelling. Six or seven hours tied down, unable to sit up or let the fluids drain from my nasal cavities or throat, ensuring wet, burning coughs that tore what little was left of my voice to shreds. Gods, it burned. I was always so disoriented after a coughing fit, because the jerking motions were just too much. I spasmed again, trying desperately to clear my airways. I couldn't breathe. _I couldn't breathe._

I had no idea where he came from, because I hadn't seen him walk up, but the harsh slap across my face was impossible to miss. I couldn't stop, though. I needed air. Everything was spinning worse than usual and now my face hurt almost as badly as my lungs did.

"Stop it, you little shit! Nobody wants to hear that!" my kidnapper snarled.

"Can't," I tried, voice sounding like nothing so much as the scrape of chalk over a blackboard.

"Oh, I'll bet you can."

And with that, he did something over my head that I couldn't see. The ropes around both my wrists suddenly slackened, but I had no time to enjoy it. Both arms were yanked up, forcing me into a sitting position, then further up, up, up. My knees didn't quite touch the bed anymore, my ankles bent awkwardly to accommodate. The ropes around my wrists had been secured to something on the ceiling – a planter hook? It was the only thing I could think of that might secure me at this height.

All thoughts of hanging plants were driven from my mind with the first blow. It was flat and broad, with edges, and unyielding. The bastard was hitting me with a piece of two-by-four. It slammed into my ribcage over and over, alternating sides, switching between my back and chest, forcing the air out of my lungs. I tried not to make a noise, not to give him the satisfaction of hearing me. I was almost thankful that my voice was just about gone – it made my job easier.

The rough and abrupt passage of air through my throat irritated it again, and another coughing fit overtook me. I guess I had underestimated how psycho my captor was, because he let loose a furious bellow, like I'd insulted his mother, and just started laying into the left side of my chest harder than before, and faster. I heard bones crack, and the next slam of the two-by-four had me screaming for all I was worth. Fire. Somehow there was fire in my lungs. I was gasping for air I couldn't get, sobbing after it. Why couldn't I fucking breathe?

He must've stopped after hearing me, must've realised that something was actually wrong.

"Oh, baby," he whispered, unfastening the rope from whatever was on the ceiling. "Baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You can forgive me, can't you?" My body slumped with nothing holding it up, and I found myself in the bastard's arms. I just… I couldn't move. Couldn't get away. Wasn't sure what he would do to me if I tried. "You know I love you, baby. I just get so angry. You shouldn't get me so angry, baby."

This guy was insane. I mean, I feel like it should have been a given, but there are psychopaths, and then there are people who genuinely have lost touch with reality. I don't know why it didn't occur to me until that moment, but I realised that there was no way I was getting free on my own. I was now severely injured, with probably two or more cracked, if not broken, ribs, no voice, a fever high enough that it might kill me, and a kidnapper-slash-rapist-slash-murderer who definitely would.

Dad, I begged in my mind, please help me. I need you.


	2. I Figure Out What Should Have Been Obvious from the Start but Wasn't

Chapter 2: I Figure Out What Should Have Been Obvious from the Start but Wasn't

Poseidon

I had to give credit where credit was due: Percy was brilliant.

My palace in Atlantis had been only about halfway decimated in the Titan War. To be perfectly honest, I had expected the damage to be greater. Those who had constructed it in ages past evidently knew their craft. In what was essentially sacrificing my home for the other Olympians, they were all now beholden to me. It was perhaps a little more satisfying than was proper to see them all grudgingly promising me the funds and resources to rebuild my home thrice over.

I'd always wanted a pool hall, if only for the pun. Now I'd be getting one. A lifetime supply of gummy worms also would not go amiss.

Amphitrite had been furious with me, as expected. I have difficulties recalling a time when she hasn't been furious with me for some reason or another. As is her way, I suspect. Triton is staunchly loyal to his mother when forced to pick a side. I'm uncertain as to what she did to win him over, but it had to be something massive. To be honest, most of my family is insufferable.

Everyone but Percy.

My child.

Amphitrite had once referred to him as "the little bastard". I'd forbidden her from speech for a month directly afterward. I was enjoying her silence more than I should. She was justified in hating me for my unfaithful tryst. She was not permitted to blame Percy for what occurred long before his birth, in a manner more befitting a toddler with a temper tantrum than a goddess. Triton was making a nuisance of himself in his mother's place, though. He had not gone so far as to insult Percy in front of me, but the thoughts clearly flashed across his smug little face every time I mentioned the boy. One day I really would sniff out just what my wife had over him.

My children are bound to me, and I to them, and have been so since the earliest of days. Before they call for my assistance in prayer, I usually can detect their intentions to do so. Their minds, and therefore their reasons for calling upon me, are open for my perusal, such that I can decide whether or not to intervene, or how best to assist my child in the context of that particular situation. It is useful and time-saving. The phrase "Help me" is terribly non-descript and almost never works out well when I act before thinking.

At first, I didn't notice it, so faint was the call.

A resonance built in my bones, and I reached out with my mind for the lost soul who needed me.

The child I found was instantly familiar to me, so known was his heart and soul: Percy. My humours froze. No. Not my dearest child. Not my sweet thing.

He was half out of his mind with fever and pain, and scarce could I make sense of his situation through the haze of it all. I felt his consciousness slip from me as I vainly attempted to hold on. But no, he was gone before I could do anything. A controlled panic rose within me. My power still extended through the region. Surely I could still do something. If nothing else, my waters could grant him healing and cool his body.

I reached – and fell short. How-?

It was impossible. New York was on the water! The water table was immense, and all mine! It was folly to suggest that there was a part of New York beyond my influence, but for the 'impossible' event I'd just witnessed.

No. Not beyond my influence. Shielded. Someone had shielded Percy's location from me. Someone had purposely kept my son away from me and then brutally harmed him.

My panic was not nearly so controlled anymore.

When next I held my son safely in my arms, I would drag his abuser to the deepest, darkest pit I could find and torture him for eternity.

\--

Percy

When I came to, I wished I hadn't.

All of me hurt like a bitch, and being half-awake, I'd forgotten about that whole chest-got-caved-in thing, so I'd tried to sit up and get my bearings. Never mind that I was still tied down; the muscles dragging over my broken ribs made it very clear that I was never to try that crap again. I took the hint.

Okay, so the ribs were an obvious issue. My head was swimming, so the fever was still raging. Swell. I tried to take inventory of what else was probably wrong with me. A quick flex of my arms confirmed that the ropes had either seriously bruised them, or the skin had already been broken. I had no way to tell in the dark. They didn't feel wet with blood, but then, maybe I'd been snoozing long enough for the blood to dry. My left wrist felt like it had been wrenched harder than my right, and I vaguely hoped I hadn't pulled anything out of its socket.

At some point in there, I remembered the whole reason I was trapped in the first place: my friendly neighbourhood kidnapper/schizoid. Intent listening revealed only that I was alone. Well, it was better than the alternative.

I could just feel the coughing coming on, and I can remember thinking nonononopleaseno faintly. My lungs and throat were already sore beyond belief. I didn't need this. And with my ribcage the way it was…

The first cough was agony. I couldn't keep count after that just because the pain was so intense, they all sort of melted together. If I could have gotten enough air to scream, I would have. I think I tried, and ended up choking on the intake of air, coughing even more. They sounded wetter and infinitely more painful than before. When it was (finally!) over, my breath rattled in my lungs Not sure, but lungs generally weren't supposed to make sounds like that, right? At this rate, my kidnapper wouldn't be the one to kill me; my own body would take care of that for him. Gods, I was so screwed.

Gods.

Dad.

I had prayed to Dad before it all got too hazy and dark to remember. Where was he? I knew that demigods were forbidden from using our powers on mortals, but I didn't think the gods had restrictions like that. If there was one, it sure didn't stop 'em from cursing mortals who irritated them left and right back in the day. Also, I was pretty sure this had to count as an extenuating circumstance. I felt like I was dying, and if I wasn't, I soon would be. Crazy kidnappers didn't just let their victims go.

So why hadn't Dad done something? Anything? I shivered, and it jerked my chest just enough for me to really feel it, wincing as the pain passed. I was all alone on this one. Dad didn't come. He wasn't going to come.

A horrible thought bloomed. You've served your purpose now that the prophecy's fulfilled, the thought said. He's got no reason to keep you alive or happy now. How certain are you that he really cared about your sorry ass to begin with?

I could feel tears pricking my eyes and begged my body if we could please do this whole emotional breakdown thing later. Sobbing was going to wreak havoc on my ribs and abused lungs. It would probably set off another coughing fit and then I might choke for real on my own spit, or worse, air, and then I'd die the least heroic death in the history of the universe. I just… I couldn't fucking do this right now. I wasn't sure if I ever could. I just wanted to be unconscious again until my ribs were healed and my voice was back and I could think in complete sentences without getting dizzy. Or maybe I just didn't want to wake up at all.

And suddenly a different thought occurred to me that snapped me out of that train of thought. A piece of two-by-four? What? Since when was crap like that able to hurt me? Since when was anything able to hurt me? Achilles's curse was pretty legit, and I would know. It had saved me a near infinite number of times in the Titan War. I hadn't imagined that. Getting sick wasn't too strange; the curse probably dealt mostly in external threats. Viruses and bacteria nailed you from the inside, where defences weren't perfect even with weird ancient Greek Underworld magic.

But getting smacked around by the piece of wood hadn't been the first sign. Back in the apartment, when I'd gotten thrown into the coffee table. That had hurt, too. Had it really only been… what, ten hours since then? It seemed like a lifetime. It would be the wee hours of the morning outside. And Mom… gods, she had to be having panic attacks. Nobody would have any idea what happened to me. All the guy would have had to do would be move the table back where it was. Maybe chuck my comforter back in my room. I'd bet he'd done both. Mom and Paul would have no idea where I was. There wouldn't be any sign of a struggle if he'd cleaned up a little. I would just be gone. In New York, they didn't let you file a missing persons report before they'd been missing for 24 hours. Mom was probably still up no matter how early in the morning it was, calling everyone she knew to see if there was anything that could be done until she could get the police in on it. If they ever found me, it would probably be too late. Like it had been for those other four boys who had all been found dead.

Well… at least Mom had Paul. I wouldn't be leaving her all alone if I died here.

It still bothered me that it was even possible for me to die here. Achilles's curse wasn't supposed to vanish or take vacations, so what was going on? Was there some kind of poison or whatever that got rid of it? A natural toxin I'd somehow gotten ahold of?

Or maybe…

Maybe I was sick from more than just seasonal allergies and what sounded like burgeoning pneumonia.

A door from the floor above slammed. The wooden ceiling creaked as someone heavy tromped around up there. He was back. The sick son of a bitch was back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): I know this chapter is pretty short. The storyline for each chapter ends where it ends, and I'm not going to give you pointless filler paragraphs of prose. I can't stand for anything useless to be in my stories. I'll stop when it feels like I should.
> 
> I'm getting to the SPN boys eventually. Just know that they won't feature too heavily in here - it's more like a cameo. I have every intention of writing the entire thing from their end later. This story will be almost entirely in first person POV, and their end of the story will be in third person in keeping with the styles of their respective fandoms.


	3. I Must Have Pissed Off Every Higher Power in Existance

Chapter 3: I Must Have Pissed Off Every Higher Power in Existence

Percy

As I listened a little longer and realised that it wasn't just my imagination, I could make out more than one set of tramping boots above me. Okay, so Ted Bundy up there had brought a friend. Stellar.

Wait! No! This really was good! If maybe I could make enough noise… my voice was shot, but maybe I could bump some stuff around, maybe rock the bed enough to make a loud thumping noise… Maybe this new guy might realise that something was off about his Beautiful Mind friend and call the cops. I'd probably get my ass kicked for my efforts, whether they paid off or not, but it was better than staying down here forever. Or up until my captor decided that it wasn't worth it to keep me alive, which was probably an inevitability anyway.

Besides, I've sort of got a reputation for taking stupid impossible chances and having it all come out okay in the end. Here went everything.

There was very little slack in the ropes that bound my legs, but evidently, my kidnapper had messed up a little and tied my arms back down a bit looser than before. I had just enough slack that I could probably get my shoulders off the bed a couple of inches. There was a wall directly on my right. If I rocked my body enough, the bed would rock with me, and if it slammed into the wall on my right hard enough, the noise would be impossible to ignore. If I could hear their footsteps so clearly from down here, the insulation couldn't be that thick. Guy #2 should by all rights be able to hear me.

One problem: the only thing I could really move was my torso. The only part of me that was seriously injured: also my torso. If I jarred myself in just the wrong way, the edges of the broken ribs could puncture my lungs. Without immediate medical attention, I'd be dead probably in a couple of minutes if that happened. I might have an hour, tops. Actually, I had no idea how long I could survive with a collapsed lung. It wasn't the sort of thing I'd ever felt the need to research before. It didn't sound like a cute little jaunt through Elysium, though.

It was certain that I'd die down here if I didn't get help, and this seemed like the only viable option. No choice. Potential punctured lung or no, I had to take the risk.

I braced myself for the pain and just kind of shifted my body to the left for more momentum, quickly turning to slam as much of my weight as I could to the right. A strangled sob came out of my mouth. Okay, maybe I'd underestimated how much it would hurt.

The good news was that the bedposts were brass. At least, I think they were brass. When they hit the wall, they resonated with a quivering tone throughout the small space. I just needed more of that, and louder, if I could. I tried to tell my body to get with the program and take one for the team, but it wasn't too keen on taking orders at the moment. It just wanted to curl into a ball and never move again.

I managed it two more times, but that really was all my body had to give. I was hyperventilating and trying to bite a hole in my shoulder to keep the screams in. My lungs didn't need any more crap thrown at them today. Or ever. It did the trick, though. I could hear footsteps approaching the door that lead down here. They sounded too light to be the steps of my somewhat obese attacker. Victory.

The door creaked open, light streaming into the darkened space. A silhouetted figure, definitely not my attacker, stood in the doorway, quickly making his way down the stairs. This was it.

He flipped a switch when he got to the bottom of the stairs, and harsh lighting seared my eyes. I shut them as fast as I could, wincing. Gods, it burned.

The guy whistled. "Damn, Levi. Sure got a pretty one this time, didn't you?"

My gut dropped through the floor, tunnelled down a little further, hit rock bottom, and then went another fifty feet for good measure. Son of bitch. Of course. I was a dumbass. This guy – 'Levi', evidently – had kidnapped and killed four kids in the last couple of months, bodies displayed prominently all around public areas of the city, and nobody had caught him. He was crazy, but not stupid. He never would have invited someone over to the house if he couldn't trust them never to say anything about it. I'd done all that for nothing. If I ever got free, it was going to have to be on my own.

Also, what did he mean by 'pretty'? I was manly as hell.

"Ain't he, though?" said my captor from the top of the stairs. "Sweetest looker I've gotten yet."

"You broken him in?"

"Not yet, no." Levi grinned. "Why; you wanted a turn?"

My eyes had adjusted just enough that I could open them slightly. I kind of wished I hadn't. Like most of the things I'd done in the last however long it had been. Levi's thinner friend had tanned, thick skin, his clothes ratty and worn and two sizes too large like they'd come from the bargain bin of a thrift store. His hair was a strange shade that looked like it was caught halfway between a mousy brown and the grey of old age. The skin hung off his thin, angular face. His eyes were sunken in a bit, but they were sharp and piercing, just like Levi's. I wondered if maybe they were related or something. It would explain why Levi trusted this guy so much.

Still… the way he looked at me, eyes eerily wide, like I was a hunk of meat. It chilled me to the bone. I was suddenly more scared of the new guy than I was of Levi.

"No, I'll leave that to you," the guy said, scratching the whiskers on his chin. "I mean, when you're done, I'd like to have a go, sure. I just don't wanna deal with all that crap the unbroken ones like to pull."

Levi scoffed. "The kid's sick or something. Think he's broken a couple bones, too. I don't think he'll try to pull too much."

"He went through a lot of trouble to make all that noise, didn't he?" The thin man leaned down and pinched my cheek, wiggling it back and forth. I did the only thing I could do to salve my pride and tried to bite the fucker's fingers off. My teeth clicked on air, unfortunately.

The man just laughed. "You see Levi? This is the sort of thing I'm talking about! Little shit just tried to bite me!"

I tried to squeak out a "Screw you, dude" and got nowhere.

Levi was coming down the stairs, his face like thunder. "Did he, now?" He got close, nudging the other man out of the way. He bent over me and slammed a fist down into my chest, right above my solar plexus. My spine arched and a strangled hiss of air came out of my mouth. My ribs. My fucking ribs. My lungs, too. The sudden flush of air from them was triggering another coughing fit.

Nononono. Not now. Please not now. But my lungs didn't listen. My spine shuddered and my shoulders shook with the force of my coughing. I turned into the wall on my right, feeling tears leak from my eyes. I didn't want them to see. They weren't going to get the satisfaction of it, damn it. I would take a second bath in the Styx in a heartbeat if it meant I never had to go through this again, because my entire upper half was on fire.

When it calmed enough that the room stopped spinning, my eyelids unclenched. I stared, pale.

Small flecks of blood covered the dingy off-white wall where I'd been coughing.

Oh, yeah. Definitely wished I'd done more research on punctured lungs now.

When I turned my face back to the two men, I could almost swear the thinner man's eyes were black as the coldest depths of Tartarus.

\--

Annabeth

It had been over a day and we still had no idea where Percy was. Sally and I had filed the missing persons report the minute they'd let us do so, only to be told that someone would be coming by later to "look into it". I was starting to see how some guy had gotten away with kidnapping and killing four other boys without getting caught.

No.

No, I couldn't think that way. Percy hadn't been killed. I had to believe that. And besides, Achilles's curse was supposed to protect him, for the most part. What were the odds that the kidnapper would find his mortal spot? All the other victims – wait, no! Percy wasn't a victim, damn it! – had been stabbed in the stomach. If the kidnapper followed the same MO, then Percy was home free. I had nothing to worry about.

Except the part where the kidnapper/killer was also a rapist, and as far as I knew, the curse did little to prevent that. Percy's body might make it through okay, but he didn't really need any more trauma in his life. I'd give anything to spare him that. My nails dug into my palms. I'd fucking kill the bastard before he could lay a hand on Percy. I'd kill him with my bare hands, and I'd enjoy it.

Sally sat down across from me at the little table. She looked… tired. Drained. Paler and somehow, less colourful as a whole. Her eyes were dull. I'd told her to get some sleep a while ago. If she'd gotten any, it wasn't enough.

"Anything?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No. I called the precinct again and they're saying their guys are held up. There was a double suicide in Central Park that's eating up their time, according to my police scanner."

"Where did you get a police scanner?"

"Made it," I said. "It's not like it's hard."

She looked at me blankly for a while, then seemed to just take it in stride.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" I ventured.

"An hour, maybe. And don't try to get me to go back to bed. I've already had coffee and I don't think I'm going to get any rest anyway. I appreciate you trying to look after me, Annabeth, but I'm a tough old girl. I'm going to worry no matter what you do." She cracked a wan smile. "If ever you become a mother, I'm sure you'll understand. I hope this kind of thing never happens to you, though."

Paul came out of the kitchen, microwave dinners in hand. He set one down in front of each of us, kissing Sally on the cheek and rubbing her shoulders when he did so.

"Thank you, Paul, but I'm really not hungry," Sally said.

"Sweetie, you can't just not eat. You need your strength if you're going to stay awake through all of this. I don't want to have to rush you to the hospital, for Percy's sake. He needs his mom to be strong right now," Paul said. She swallowed hard and stared at the microwaved chicken like a skilled veterinarian could save it, but picked up the fork and began picking at it, anyway. "You too, young lady," Paul said.

I nodded. I understood the importance of keeping your strength up – I'd had to eat out of dumpsters before, back when I was on the streets, fighting off monsters. Before Thalia and Luke had found me. When you viewed life as a battlefield, you figured out the things most important for survival damn quickly. I might have had no appetite, but I dug in.

About twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. All three of us jumped up to get it, but because I vaulted over the couch, I made it there first.

"Yes?" I asked, throwing the door wide. I was greeted with two badges and two very tall men. Like, ridiculously tall. One of them looked like he could hit his head on the doorway if he didn't duck.

"Agents Groban and Whitmore. FBI. We're here about a kidnapping case?" the shorter one, Groban, offered.

"Please, please, come in. We've been waiting," Sally said, taking over and ushering them both towards the couch. The taller man really did duck slightly when he came through the door.

"So, we've got a report saying you called your son, Perseus-"

"Percy."

"-Percy Jackson in missing, but you went on record saying he was kidnapped. Can you tell us why you jumped to that conclusion?" Whitmore asked.

I jumped in. "I was first to know he was missing. I'm his… well, I'm his girlfriend," I mumbled. I could practically feel my face flush. "I just got kind of a bad feeling and ran right over. The front door was unlocked. Nobody ever leaves the front door unlocked. Percy was gone. The coffee table had been moved. His blanket was tossed on the ground, and then I found out once Mrs. Jackson got home that Percy had been really sick for the last week or so. Like, the could-barely-walk kind of sick. He wasn't just going to go wandering around the block, and he definitely wouldn't have been gone for this long even if he had."

Whitmore nodded. "You are aware, then, that all kidnapping cases are federal jurisdiction?" We nodded.

"We're working on the current kidnapper/killer case. You've probably seen it in the papers. Because we don't actually have proof that your son is definitively the next victim, we can't go on record including him in our investigation. The way things are looking, though, your son fits the victim profile. Can you tell us if Percy came into contact with anyone strange over the last few days?" Groban asked.

Sally frowned. "He's been bedridden since Spring Break started. He hasn't seen anyone but me and my husband."

Paul held her hand. "We'll find him, Sally," he said.

"I know, I just…" Her gaze sharpened on the men sitting on her couch. "How confident are you that my baby's kidnapping and your case are related?"

They exchanged a glance. "We don't think it would hurt to treat them as related for now, anyway. We're working with the NYPD on the matter. All available resources will go to finding Percy, whether his case is related or not," Whitmore said.

Sally nodded, satisfied. Her jaw suddenly clenched. "I just would like you to know that my boy is very special. If anything were to happen to him… all bets are off."

I thought I understood. If Percy... died... well, judging by the rising sea levels reported around the world, Poseidon would wreak nine kinds of destruction on anyone who lived by the sea. Earthquakes were also a very real possibility. Poseidon loved Percy dearly.

The FBI agents looked slightly confused at her statement. "Of course, ma'am," said Agent Groban, not understanding at all. "If you remember anything out of the ordinary from the day your son disappeared, even if it seems like it's nothing, please give us a call." He forked over a business card that Paul took. "Thank you for your time."

As I watched them walk down the hallway toward the staircase, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about them. No way the FBI let their agents get away with the luxurious kind of locks Agent Whitmore had. Okay, that wasn't the reason I was suspicious, but it was as good a reason as any. They moved like… well, they moved like demigods. People who had been raised fighting, had been born to it. Government suits walked, talked, and breathed like suits. These guys were not government suits. I followed them.

I didn't catch much of their conversation until they hit the third floor stairwell.

"I don't know, Sam. This kid's got a rebellious streak a mile wide if his school records are anything to go by. How do we know he didn't just ditch? You know, aside from the pretty girlfriend. Also, what was with her crazy intuition? She's gotta be making that crap up." That was Groban's voice.

"I don't think she is," Whitmore's voice said. "She looked pretty upset about it. Like, angry. Ready to bash some heads in. I don't think she had anything to do with his disappearance. Besides, we know he didn't 'just ditch' because he couldn't even walk."

"That's gotta suck, though. Sick for a week and then some jackass abducts you. Somebody on the God Squad really hates this kid."

God Squad? Wait… did he mean…?

Maybe I was right. Maybe these two were demigods. But if so, wouldn't they know about Percy? They should know that it would be okay to talk to us candidly if they knew everything.

"Less the God Squad and more the other direction, I think," Sam said. "Demon activity definitely sprung up all around this building yesterday."

Demons? Okay, yeah; these men definitely weren't normal, and they definitely weren't FBI.

"Then let's just kill the sonuvabitch before he ups his kill count to five, shall we? Now come on, little brother. There's a bar full of suckers calling our names."

They climbed into their car, one of those vintage types – a glossy black Chevy Impala from the looks of it. Not a government suit kind of car for sure. Also, that 'little brother' thing. They had different last names. They couldn't be brothers unless they'd lied to us about absolutely everything.

Okay, that was it.

These bastards had answers they didn't want to share.

Shame I wasn't going to give them a choice in the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): A longer chapter than I normally do. I swear, I just can't get a regular length in here, can I? Oh, well. Again and always, I proofread NOTHING. But yay! The boys have shown up! Dean is a sassy bitch and I love him. I'm a Sammy kind of girl to the ends of the earth, though. If you think about it, Percy and Sam have very similar storylines. That might actually be part of why I love them both so much.
> 
> Yes, there are going to be some references to sexual assault in later chapters. I'm not going to go into detail or let it go too far, but know that I will put a trigger warning overtop a chapter if there's some stuff that might freak people out.


	4. I Feel So Special with You All Freaking Out Over Me

Poseidon

Powerful wards had been erected around Percy. I had railed against them with all of my power, enlisting the help of the few gods who lived with me in Atlantis, and our efforts had returned nothing. Whatever magic was being used, it was not known to us, or archived. Any Grecian curse or ward could have been broken easily with our abilities. Any Roman curse too, for that matter. The magic felt younger, and darker. It had a tang about it that felt vaguely human, if humanity's essence had been warped into something hideous and black. My magic shuddered to be near it. I could only imagine what it was like for Percy, to be in the centre of it all.

He had been gone for over a day now. For immortal gods, we do not keep track of time or schedules or anything like that in quite the way mortals do. We don't have day jobs or trains to catch. We do things when it feels like it's about time to do them. The only dates we really pay attention to are the solstices, and those are events we feel in our bones moreso than in our calendars. This all made it very strange for me as I kept my eyes glued to a water-proof wristwatch some diver had dropped on the ocean floor a while back. It had taken some doing to find the blasted thing in my palace, but I'd found it. I hadn't gone anywhere without it since.

As I stalked through the halls, trying to expend my nervous energy, the mermaids and –men flashed me concerned, if not frightened, looks. My face must have been twisted in some expression of rage, like it had been for the past day. For some reason, I couldn't calm my features. I also didn't want to.

I didn't even bother attempting to calm the roiling seas. The ocean responds to my moods in its own muted way. There was nothing muted about the ship-killer storms, with radii of hundreds of miles, that dotted the globe. Cyclones and water-spouts. 150-foot waves. Earthquakes and tsunamis. Japan was not having a good year because of me. I might also have done something unfortunate to a nuclear reactor in the process. I would find it in me to be apologetic about that later, after my son was returned safely to me. I tried to ignore the part of me that whispered that I'd be lucky to get him back alive, let alone safe.

I had to accept the risk, though. I could not stroll through this expecting everything to work out for the best. Such naiveté could bring harm to Percy. I didn't want to consider all the things that could be happening to him, but I had to. Perhaps, instead of asking the minor gods and goddesses in Atlantis for their meagre help, I should be asking favours of the other Olympians. They owed me still for my sacrifice in the Titan War, and they owed Percy for all he had done throughout the years.

I owed it to my son to do everything in my power to get him back, even if it meant beginning a whole new war against the mysterious entity that was keeping him from me.

\--

Annabeth

I followed Whitmore and Groban – or, since those names were probably made up on the spot, Sam and Dean. They were staying in a run-down-looking hotel towards the outskirts of the city. I could kind of understand that a little. Hotel rates at the heart of the city were anything but cheap. The tourism industry didn't cater much to those without expensive tastes. Their hotel room was on the second floor, room 216, going by the hastily scrawled notes at the bottom of that business card Groban – Dean – had given Paul. I thanked the gods he'd written it all down, because otherwise I never would have been able to tell the cab where to go.

Getting into their room was a simple matter. I just went up the fire escape and cracked open their window. The thing was appallingly tiny. I manoeuvred my arm in first to get a decent place to rest my weight, and damn near yanked it right back when my hand came to rest on… was that sand? No, salt. What kind of nutjobs…? Whatever. Okay. Head in the game. Right. It took some extensive wiggling to get my head, shoulders, and hips in there, but I did it. I mean, I almost fell on my ass as soon as my hips finally sprung loose, and I knocked over the lamp on the nightstand, but I was still impressed with myself. The Stoll brothers were getting a gift basket when all this was over – I'd never appreciated career thieves quite so much before this.

Luckily, no-one was in the room. The light in the bathroom was off, although the bedroom light was on. I'd wondered at that until I remembered that these guys probably hated being caught off guard as much as demigods do, and it's much easier for a nasty surprise to hide in wait in the dark than in the light. Their suits and ties were neatly laid out over one of those ironing boards that folds out from the inside of the closet. They must have changed into street clothes and then went out for dinner or something. I remembered Dean mentioning something about hitting up a bar before they'd left Percy's building.

I took the opportunity to look around and see what I was dealing with. After ten long minutes of staring and careful computation, I still wasn't sure.

A massive cork board with a map of the New York City area, with colour-coded pins jammed into locations I recognised as the body dump sites from the last four murders. Okay, so they weren't lying about the whole investigation part. They definitely did extensive research, if the wall of photographs, witness testimonies, and coroners' reports, all colour-coded, was any indication. Part of me was impressed and wondered if maybe they weren't sons of Athena. The detail that went into their research was immaculate and rather beautiful. There was a list that I didn't understand, pinned off all the way on the right with a black thumbtack. It mentioned the lightning storms and power outages we'd had over the last few days. Some other things that didn't seem at all important. What did they have to do with the missing kids? If they thought a monster with some kind of lightning- or electricity-based powers was behind this, they were wasting their time. I was sure it was a human. A monster in human form, more like.

The rest of the room was not quite so decipherable. Lines of salt over the doorways and the windowsill. I'd messed up the one by the window with my flailing around. Using my fingers, I swept it back into place. Odds were good they had a reason for doing something so strange. Their research alone made me think these guys knew perfectly well what they were doing. Quite aside from that, in black sharpie, all over the window and on the walls, were symbols. No. Sigils, probably. Some I vaguely recognised, but couldn't place for the life of me. They weren't Greek. They weren't Roman, either. I got a hint when I saw a jar of what looked like water with a rosary sitting down at the bottom. Holy water. Oh man, these guys were exorcists. That list of lightning storm stuff probably was a list of demonic omens. Come to think of it, Dean had said something like that before. I'd been too confused to really understand. No wonder they felt they couldn't tell Sally and Paul the truth. The salt lines, then, had to be there to discourage evil spirits from entering. In the third Carthage War, the Romans salted their fallen enemies' fields so they would never be able to grow anything there again. The practice lived on in superstition as salt became symbolic of a barring of unwanted life. Or maybe it wasn't so symbolic after all.

Under their pillows, they each had small hemp bags of – actually, I had no idea what the hell these things were. They looked like poultices, but had a weird collection of stuff inside. When I discovered something that looked like a baby's bone, I quickly shoved it all back inside and tied it back off. Yeah. Not touching those again.

I'd explored enough to have an okay grip on who and what these men were. Enough that maybe I could con them into thinking I knew as much as they did. They would hardly be able to turn me away if they thought I was an exorcist, too. Or something like it, at least. I settled down on the bed furthest from the door and waited.

After twenty minutes, I got bored and opened up the laptop that had been on the table in the corner. I was surprised that the wifi signal was so strong. The hotel didn't even offer free wifi, if memory served. Hmm. Odd.

Long story short, remind me never to look through a man's browser history ever again. A lot of it was research-oriented, news and tabloid websites, a fair number of visits to Google maps and the New York City subway website, but the rest… Yeah, no.

I was concentrating very hard on not touching anything else when they finally came back.

"I don't know, man, I think we did pretty go-"

"Dean!" Sam spotted me first, instantly putting himself between men and his brother, whipping out a gun and aiming it at me in a matter of seconds. Dean wasn't far behind.

"Wait a… aren't you that chick from…?" Dean muttered, his gun, and subsequently Sam's, lowering. His gun suddenly came back up, his eyes harder than steel. "Was it you?"

My face tightened. "If you're asking whether or not I kidnapped and/or murdered the love of my life, the answer's no. I just got pissed off when I realised you two numbskulls were lying to us." They looked confused. "You called him your brother right outside the apartment," I told Dean, "but you had two different last names when you introduced yourselves. Two and two doesn't equal fish unless some quality drugs are involved."

Dean spluttered while Sam gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look, clearly saying, This is all your fault and I will blame you for everything that goes wrong from this point forward.

"It has come to my attention that you've been keeping a fair bit from us, boys. You're not FBI. The FBI doesn't keep holy water on the nightstand. Your names aren't Groban and Whitmore; they're Sam and Dean… whatever your last name is." I got up off the bed and walked up to them as calmly as I could. "You think you know what took my boyfriend, but you're wrong."

"Wh-what-"

"It's not a demon."

Dean's eyebrows came down. "All the omens are here. Sulphur on the bodies, in the dump sites. It's clear as day. Plus, what the hell do you know about demons, li'l miss thang?"

Stifling the urge to stab him in the throat (my celestial bronze knife would pass right through the little shit's neck, anyway), I smiled tightly at them both. "I don't give a rat's ass what your omens say. Percy and I both know how to handle demons in ways that Percy's illness wouldn't have hindered. His attacker was human; I'm sure of it."

Sam looked thoughtful. "If that's true… this explains some things. You're from a Hunter family or something?"

I nodded, assuming that was an in-house term for exorcist and playing along. "Or something, yeah."

"Think about it, Dean. We found sulphur on the bodies, but not at any of the locations where the victims were taken. The kidnapper and whoever's ditching the bodies might not be the same person. We might have a team to work with."

"And one's a human while the other's a demon." Dean whistled, getting into it. "Come to think of it, I remember something like that happening a while back. The postal worker guy who went postal and a demon helped him do it."

"They cultivate psychopaths when they can. We've got more than one to worry about, now-" Sam said.

"-meaning all of the alibis we collected are useless," Dean groaned. "Fuck."

They seemed to have forgotten all about me. I cleared my throat to remedy that. They blinked, coming out of it and directing their attention towards me again.

"What exactly do you want, though? We might not be FBI, but we're still investigating, and we're still by all means going to try and get Percy back in one piece," Sam said.

"Unlikely, but we'll try."

"Dean!"

"Saying it like it is, little brother. False hope sucks, and I'm not gonna sugar-coat it for her. Besides, if she's from a Hunter background, she's already aware of how bad this can go."

My teeth made a creaking noise and I realised I'd been clenching my jaw. "Don't say that. Percy's strong. He always comes through okay." I tried to pretend that my voice didn't crack a little and bulled my way forward. "And right now, he's been missing for thirty hours, forty-nine minutes, and seventeen seconds. I haven't got time to waste on you two being idiots. You include me on this. No complaints. You've already given up on Percy, but I haven't. I'm going to get him back, damn it, and neither of you is going to stand in my fucking way. Is that clear?"

They looked a bit blindsided. "You… you want to-?"

"Stay here and work with you? Yes."

Dean stayed silent. Sam blinked for a while, then muttered, "Well then, I guess we better start pooling what we know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): Lol, still haven't proofread
> 
> Yeah, so Annabeth reminds the boys fiercely of their mother. Or maybe of Jo. Probably both. In my head, Annabeth is played by Alona Tal, so there you go. That's why they're so keen on just kind of going with it. But hey! at least I finally got a chapter to my normal average length. This is about the length I try to aim for, so... just letting you know what to expect.
> 
> I'm not planning on letting the boys in on that whole demigod thing... until the sequel. HA. Yes, I already have one planned out. Shhh. Actually, it's going to be more of a oneshot than a full sequel, but... yeah.


	5. I Can't-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: VERY MUCH NON-CON EXCEPT NOT QUITE
> 
> (Just trust me on this one – if you have any doubts about your ability to stomach references to rape, skip this chapter. Review and I will reply with a synopsis of the chapter so you don't miss anything plotline-wise, but will still be able to avoid the parts that are disturbing.)

Annabeth

Nothing. I'd been sitting, scanning their documents, for upwards of an hour. I was going to go insane like this. My ADHD sure picked one hell of a time to act up. I couldn't concentrate.

"You look like you're ready to kill someone," Sam's voice said. I turned. He held out a cup of what smelled like coffee, which I gratefully took, never mind that the caffeine was unnecessary. "Need a break?"

"This isn't exactly about what I need, is it?" I muttered.

Sam sighed like he'd been down this road before and he would be again. "I know you're worried, but working yourself to death creates more problems than it solves," he said.

"You say that from experience?"

"Yeah." His eyes flicked over to his brother over on the other half of the room. "The whole family kind of sucks when it comes to taking good care of ourselves. Self-sacrifice is only great when you're the one doing it – it's crap for everybody else, so I can assure you if Percy figures out that you haven't been taking good care of yourself, he's going to be pissed. Or miserable. Or both. Take your pick."

I winced. He was probably right, not that it was going to stop me. Something about Sam reminded me a lot of Percy. Some kind of indefatigable calm about them, I guess. He was driven and determined without coming on too strong of forcefully. Quietly accepting, like someone who's had too much bad happen to them to be optimistic, but too much strength to ever let it beat them.

Like how the sea is so impossibly powerful and vast, yet on a beach under the moon, it kitten-licks at your ankles, gentle as could be.

I still missed my Percy. At least he was a normally-sized human and not like Mister Redwood over here. Ten bucks said the guy had some giant blood in him.

"Oh, yeah!" Dean bellowed, punching the air. "Hate to break up the tea party ladies, but I'd like to inform you all that I'm flawless and perfect and you owe me, like, twenty beers for this."

"Any particular reason this time, or-"

"Don't you roll your eyes at me, Sammy; I'll roll your whole head. Point, geek boy, is that I have done what you have not. Check it out." He spun the laptop with a flourish, that smug-as-fuck look practically tattooed on. "Now where is the congratulatory double-bacon cheeseburger I've been after since we hit Idaho?"

"Probably back in Idaho," Sam said. "But this… nice one, Dean."

"Damn skippy. Grab your guns and the holy water. Get the chick an anti-possession amulet; if she gets demonified, I won't be my fault if I have to stab her throat out," Dean said. He whistled as he darted towards the bathroom. "And drain your tanks before we leave, 'cause I ain't making any pit stops on the way!"

"Yes, Mom," Sam said. He pushed himself off the bed and got to work packing up.

I could only stare at the computer screen. No way. There was just no way. It couldn't be that simple. It had taken that clever little shit an hour. Had they just been dicking around before now, and that was why they hadn't found the guy until just now? What the hell were these guys?

I absently caught an amulet that Sam chucked at me. It looked like a pentagram with squiggles coming out of it. Anti-possession amulet, Dean had called it. When I thought possession, all I could think of was Luke possessed by Kronos, eyes vibrantly gold and everything else about him that I used to love grey and lifeless. I shivered. But Percy came first.

And with this, we knew exactly where he was.

\--

Percy

I'd had neither food nor water for… however long it had been. Probably more than a day. When you drift in and out of consciousness, it's pretty hard to keep track of time. To be honest, though, I wasn't sure I could stomach either. Gods, but it hurt to breathe so much. I wasn't drowning in my own blood, though, so I probably hadn't punctured a lung like I'd thought. I'd never punctured a lung before, so it wasn't like I had anything to compare it to. I must've just torn my throat lining so badly, I was coughing up flecks of blood. Joy. Well, not that I was complaining. It beat that whole 'dying' alternative.

The coughs that tore through me weren't as frequent as they had been. At first I thought that was good until I realised that my body was simply running out of the energy to do so. The muscles just didn't have the strength to contract as much anymore. What coughing fits I still had resounded from deep in my chest, hacking, choking coughs that bubbled and often kept me from being able to breathe for long seconds that felt like hours.

The fever had gotten worse, too. I was dizzy all the time, unable to focus my eyes, whether I'd been moving around or not. A couple of times I could swear I saw Annabeth, or Mom. Hallucinations. Yeah, a hospital would do me some good right about then. Or maybe Mom could just chuck me to the bottom of the ocean where it was nice and cold. Maybe the water in my lungs would help clean out some of the gunk and heal up the lacerations in my throat. Actually, I can't even articulate how awesome that sounded right then.

Except that I wanted to see Annabeth some more. I didn't care if I was hallucinating her. I probably wasn't getting out of here alive – I was optimistic, but not stupid. This would be my last chance to see her. To have her look at me like I was something precious, except for that whole part where she was debating whether to kiss me or punch me. I loved that face. That whole 'what-am-I-gonna-do-with-you-Seaweed-Brain?' face. I wanted her to be the last face I saw.

If miracles existed, and if the fever didn't shake my short-term memory like an Etch-A-Sketch, I'd tell Annabeth as much.

"Hey, baby. You doing all right?"

Fuck! When had he-? I was so out of it, I hadn't even noticed him – what was his name again? Did it start with an L? So much for my short-term memory making it out of this intact. For some reason, all I could think of were jeans.

And then one of his meaty hands was on my forehead, pushing my hair out of my face. "Oh, baby, you're really warm."

"No shit, Sherlock," I tried to squeak out. I only managed an unintelligible hiss of air.

The hand slid down, cupping my face. I tried to roll away from it. Just what did he think he was doing? "So beautiful. All for me." The hell I was. Nice try, bucko. I'd've bit his presumptuous little hand off if I'd had the strength to move at all.

And then he was climbing onto the bed, crouching over me. What? No. Unacceptable. _This was not okay_. He was much too close, much too warm, and much, _much_ too handsy.

"Wh-what are you-?"

"Calm down, baby, I'll take care of you. You don't have to worry…" He couldn't hear me. That, or he just couldn't understand me. I'd never wanted the power of speech so badly in my life. And his fucking hands were on my sides, rubbing up and down like the son of a bitch had the right. No. _No. I did not want him there._ My breathing, painful though it was, sped up like crazy, as did my heartbeat. My arms jerked as some primal instinct made me fight uselessly against the ropes holding me there. I could only buck around so much with my captor – _Levi_ , that was his name – poised above me.

"Get off," I whispered. He still didn't hear me. "Get off me, please."

"I'll make you feel better, sweetie," Levi said, pushing my shirt up. Oh, hell no. He was pressing kisses to the skin over my ribs, black and blue where he'd slammed that piece of wood into me over and over. It ached like anything even without the pressure of his lips over them, and that hideous tingling feeling of _wrongwrongwrong_ that sprung up over my skin everywhere he touched me sure wasn't helping.

" _Stop_ ," I said.

He dipped lower, fingers running along the tops of my sleep pants and hooking under the waistband. Suddenly, there was a cool, slimy sensation just above my left hip. "You taste so good, baby…" Had that been his tongue? If I hadn't been panicking before, I was then.

"No! Nononono, please stop. Just stop touching me. I promise I won't try to escape, just stop touching me," I babbled. The words were still all but impossible to make out, but Levi at least seemed to realise that I was trying to speak this time.

"Oh, don't get all bent out of shape, darling. I'm here to take care of you," he said, leaning back up over my face. "I'm not going to hurt you, see?"

And then he was kissing me.

I bucked like crazy, the adrenaline surge just enough for me to make it really fucking apparent that I wanted no part of this, or of him. I might not have been able to move much from the bonds, but it was enough to jerk my head away from him. The bastard just latched onto my neck, open-mouthed. I might've whimpered. I was shaking all over, the short burst of energy gone and used up.

His fingers went back to work on the waistband of my pants, working them off me slowly. I tried so hard to throw him off, to get him to stop. I swear I did. It just wasn't enough. I felt tears run down over the bridge of my nose, dropping off into the mattress, praying to Dad for anything, anything at all that would keep this monster from… _touching_ me.

Wait.

I was crying.

_Salt water._

I threw the last tiny bit of my energy into it, feeling the yanking feeling in my stomach that always happened when I used my powers. Some part of me registered that it was dangerous to do this, that it might kill me in the state I was in, but I didn't care. If I was going to die, I was going to do it protecting what little remained of my sanity. I couldn't handle the alternative. The tears in the mattress flowed back up, consolidating with the tears still on my face. Just a few drops, just a few millilitres, but it was more than enough.

I sent it straight at my kidnapper's forehead at speeds so high, the air whistled. Those few drops of water cut through his skull like it was wet toilet paper.

I dimly noted crashing sounds on the floor above me, but couldn't really process them. Levi's body had collapsed onto me before rolling onto the floor, and my ribs had taken the full brunt of his weight.

I didn't have the strength to care about the pain.

I didn't have the strength to care about anything.

I almost thought I heard Annabeth's voice before it all went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): I love it when my favourite characters are hurt or sick, because it makes them physically vulnerable, and we see that more emotive side of them. On the other hand, I love mentally strong characters. This being said, I don't like it when Hurt! or Sick!fics make a character pathetic and helpless emotionally. That's not who they are. You're not staying true to the character if you change that. Percy might be terrified, sick, hurt, and just about ready to break the fuck down, but that doesn't mean he's not going to go down fighting.
> 
> I initially didn't mean for Sam and Dean to play such a big role in this fic (which is why I didn't put this in the Crossover section), but the more I wrote, the more I realised that it would only make sense if I included their part of the story, too. Otherwise, it was all a little too Deus Ex Machina, you know? I figured I'd be okay, since I described them from Annabeth's point of view, and she has no idea who these guys are. If you have no idea what's going on, you're not supposed to. Annabeth doesn't know, either, and that's okay. They aren't going to be in here for the second half of the story. Basically, they pop up again once for the next chapter and then they're gone.
> 
> Until the sequel, that is.


	6. Have Fun Storming the Castle - NOT

Annabeth

"So… what exactly made you think of a pizza guy?" Sam asked as soon as we'd all slid into their black Impala. "Seems a little random." My ears perked. I would have asked myself; I wanted to hear this answer.

Dean shrugged and backed out of the parking lot, almost immediately slamming on the gas. "You heard what they all said. The kid was so sick he could hardly move. The only contact he could've had with the sonuvabitch prior to that whole kidnapping-spiel would have to be something where the guy came to the front door – where he came to them and not the other way around. Plus, remembering about the post office dude, I figured it might be some sort of delivery service. Checked postal routes first, obviously. Nada. Two of the vics were on the same route, but the rest were spread out. One also lived in an apartment building where all mail and UPS-type deals have to get signed for on the bottom floor by some random secretary or something, so mail carriers are out. So there's gotta be a different type of delivery that can't wait. Flowers count as regular mail. Food, on the other hand, is sort of an immediate concern. What do teenage boys eat a crap-ton of? Pizza. What's New York famous for? Pizza. What kind of box was in the trash of every single vic, now that I think of it?"

"Lemme guess – Chinese takeout?"

"I will punch you in your smarmy little face, Sammy. You know where I'm going with this."

"There still have to be a hundred different pizza places in the city," I said.

"Narrowed it down from the box label. Pudgie's Pizza. Three joints in the city, total. Only one that had the delivery radius that covered all the homes of the vics. Got the employee list, found the delivery guy section. We know it's a guy. Statistically, it's probably a white guy, mid 30s to 40s or so. Narrows it down to four delivery boys. A little online yellow-page action and three of the four live in apartment buildings or city centres where if somebody screams, the cops are gonna be on you in a hot second. The last one lives out by the harbour in some shack where nobody's going to hear anything. That's gotta be our guy," Dean said.

"Levi Andrew Thames," Sam said, reading off a page on his laptop. "37. White. Spent a lot of time in and out of psychiatric care in Missouri before moving up here in 2009. I'd say he's a safe bet."

"Sounds like Redneck Central to me." Dean said.

I spoke up. "So, have you two actually got a plan or is this just another day, another storming-the-castle expedition?"

Dean chuckled. "Hey, don't knock it. Storming the castle is a very important step in our process."

"The rest of which is?"

"Get in, gank it, get out."

I glared, although from the front seats, neither of them could see my face. "That's not going to fly here, if indeed it flies anywhere."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"No, Dean. She's right. If Percy's still alive, and both of them, Levi and the demon working with him, are in the house at the same time…"

"While you're taking out one of them, the other will hold Percy hostage, and then you won't have a hostage to trade for him," I finished.

"So you're saying we tie one of them down or something instead of killing it right away on the off chance we need to do a hostage exchange?"

"Yes," I said.

Dean lowered his voice, clearly trying to get a message to Sam without me hearing. He underestimated my ears. "C'mon Sam, who does she think she's kidding? What are the odds the kid's still breathing?"

"Dean," Sam said, clearly admonishing, but not contradicting his brother. There went my organs again. Cold as ice. I imagined they'd only warm up when Percy next put his arms around me.

Dean cleared his throat and spoke louder. "So when we go in, we go in all at once. We secure each room until we find one of the little bastards. Nobody acts alone. No splitting up. I don't like the idea of any of us getting outnumbered. Kid –"

"Annabeth."

"Right. Whatever. You got a weapon you can use?"

I pulled out my celestial bronze knife and waved it so Dean could see from the rearview. I watched his eyes, reflected in the glass, get huge. "Yeah, that'll work. You going to be okay with maybe stabbing some people before this whole thing's over?"

"Respectfully, I disagree. I don't think they're people anymore. I'm not going to have any problems," I said. And I really wasn't. Maybe it was because I couldn't see them. Maybe when they were in front of me, living, breathing mortals, I'd feel more sympathetic. But just then, I was cold and heartless inside, and I couldn't imagine showing mercy to anyone who touched my boyfriend. Whatever they had done to him, they would pay in blood, if I could manage it. I conveniently left out telling the two much older men that my knife couldn't touch pure mortals. I had no idea if it would kill demons, particularly if they were possessing mortals. Did it count? I hoped so, seeing as the knife was the only weapon I had on me. Maybe I could snatch an iron knife from their trunk. I was sure I'd seen one or two rattling around in there somewhere. Just to be on the safe side and all.

The buildings outside grew sparser the closer to the harbour we got. The Long Island Sound made sleepy, shushing noises that I could hear faintly.

And just like that, we were there. Dean was pulling the car into a warehouse parking lot about two hundred yards from a ratty-looking wooden shack that looked like the sea hadn't treated it well. The wood looked rotted even from this distance.

"That's it?" I asked.

"That's it. Doesn't look like much, does it?"

"No." A niggling worry that hadn't been there before popped up in my brain. Percy was already terribly sick. If the place had crappy heating, or mildew, or toxic mould, or pests… his health would have taken a steep decline even if there had been no active abuse.

"We're probably not going to need lockpicks. I bet you I could break that door in with one kick," Sam said.

"Oooh. Bet taken. Ten bucks?"

"Ten bucks." They shook on it.

Was this what all of their exorcisms – or, I guess, hunts – were like? Crazy sons of bitches. They treated it like it was a game. Like someone's life wasn't hanging in the balance. It made me seethingly furious, for all that I knew I owed a lot to these two already.

Dean grabbed a handgun, checking the bullets for something before shoving it into the waistband of his pants. He then stocked up on holy water and, for some reason, chalk, and Sam grabbed a wicked-looking serrated dagger that had etchings in the metal. Some part of me shivered as I looked at it and I automatically knew that it was every bit as deadly to supernatural creatures as celestial bronze.

Dean flashed us a toothy grin. "We ready to do this thing?"

"Just one thing…" I muttered, reaching in and snagging that iron knife I'd seen earlier. They both gave me odd looks. "Just in case," I said. "You never know when something's going to get knocked out of your hand." That seemed to be good enough for them, as they nodded and shut the trunk.

"Then Thunderbirds are go."

Sam had indeed been able to bust the door in with one kick, gleefully holding out a hand and accepting the ten dollar bill. The house was cold and dank, just as I'd desperately hoped it wouldn't be. Great. This could not be good for Percy's lungs. Or for anyone's lungs, come to think of it. It also had a funny smell to it that I couldn't place. It smelled like trash that should've been taken out a few weeks ago, possibly with undertones of cigarette smoke, what might've been marijuana smoke (you learn to recognize pot pretty fast when you grow up in New York City), and… what that cat or person urine? I had no desire to learn the subtleties. The place was in dire need of a good burning to the ground. It was the only thing I could think of that might redeem the building.

The front room was empty, save for a rotting, moth-eaten couch with a hideous toile print and a television with a big crack in the screen. The kitchen was slightly visible through the open walkway from the living room, and a rickety staircase was in the back on the left – actually, it was right next to a door that was only slightly open, showing a darkened staircase that looked like it was leading down. On the right, it looked like a path to a laundry room or something.

I wanted to call out for Percy. I wanted to so badly. But if his captors heard me… they might decide to kill him. Or us. And it wasn't like he would've been able to answer me, anyway. I'd heard what Sally said about him losing his voice, so even if they didn't gag him, it still would have been useless. I just wanted him so badly. My hands tightened on the grip of my knife, the other edging towards the hilt of the iron one I'd tucked into my sheath. There's a part of me that takes great comfort in being as heavily armed as possible.

The stairs were hideously creaky, so we heard him coming.

Dean's gun immediately swivelled around to aim straight for the bastard. "All right, douche-canoe. Down the stairs, nice and easy. Hands on top of your head. Come on."

The man was incredibly thin and gaunt, his clothes hanging limply around him like either he'd lost a lot of weight recently or he'd had trouble guessing his own size at a Bargain Mart. Not that his clothes looked at all new. Maybe they were thrift store finds. His eyes were sunken in and disturbing, just like that awful crooked smile on his face.

"Ahh, the Winchester boys. Here for lil ol' me? I'm honoured," he drawled.

"We ain't here for you, chuckles. Where's the other one? And where's the kid?" Dean asked.

True to his impromptu nickname, the bastard started chuckling. "If you're looking for my pretty little prodigy, he's off enjoying himself right now. With your kiddo, actually."

"You sick fuck," I said, my voice shaking. I raised my knife. "You give him back right now, and if you've hurt a single hair on his head, I'll-"

"You'll what? Whatever kind of knife that is, it's not going to hurt me." I doubted that. There would be an interesting way of checking, though. I could just stab it through his face a good dozen times and see if that didn't do the trick.

"Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but this one will kill you, no problem," Sam said, brandishing the dagger. The demon appeared to recognize it, and his snarky grin faltered for half a second.

The demon – this one had to be the demon, even if he looked human – had reached the bottom of the stairs a few yards away from us. "Doesn't matter. The kid's probably dead already, anyway. One-way ticket to the the Styx, isn't it?" He was looking straight at me when he said it. Wait… Could he -?

My eyes got huge. "The other victims-?"

He grinned at me like we were sharing an inside joke. "Oh, not all. But some, yeah. You little shits are pretty annoying and we've tried sending cease and desist orders –" he shrugged, sighing "-but they just don't seem to do any good. So we've taken it up a notch. Sure, some extras get thrown in that we don't care about, but as long as we get what we came for, we're good. And Levi's a real sweetheart, cleaning up the streets for us. A swell guy all around, really. And he deserves a little fun before killing them, don't you think?"

Sam and Dean were both shooting me looks like What the hell is he talking about? and What do you know that we don't? I wasn't in any condition to answer. My arms were shaking and my lungs were heaving air like crazy. My vision stayed clear. I was too enraged to cry just then.

"You're welcome to join him, sweetcheeks," the demon crooned. "Why, I think you'd be all for it, given how sweet his ass-"

He never finished the sentence, because celestial bronze was sticking out of his chest where I'd thrust it with enough force to go in all the way to the hilt.

The demon stared down at the hilt, blinking in confusion for a second or two. Then he looked up at me, eyes pure black. And then white light flashed from his eyes and mouth as his body convulsed and dropped to the ground, my knife sliding free with no resistance. The man hit the ground with a thud and a small groan issued from his mouth.

The celestial bronze killed the demon without touching the human form. Well, that was convenient, even if it just made me want to stab the shit out of the innocent face it had been borrowing for another good forty times. It shocked me how much I wanted to see blood.

The frustration built. I heaved air, not daring to look back and see the expressions on the brothers' faces. A keening noise came out of my throat. Eventually, I snapped and grabbed a gaudy ceramic lamp from the table by the couch and threw it against the wall with a shriek. It shattered, of course, little chunks of ceramic and glass spraying everywhere. Nobody said anything, for which I was grateful. If they'd spoken, I probably would have stabbed them, too, and given that the whole point of throwing the lamp was to avoid stabbing more people… well.

I made straight for the stairs. I'd go down to the basement first. It would be easy to search. We had a water table, so any basement would be costly and small. I could hear footsteps, telling me that the brothers – Winchesters, had it called them? – were right behind me, backing me up.

I flicked the switch by the stairs and damn near screamed. Actually, I might really have shrieked out his name.

Percy. Oh, my baby.

I must have freaking flown down the stairs, because I have no memory of having made the journey down.

A man's body was on the ground next to what might charitably be called a bed, a hole in his head with blood pooling underneath him grotesquely. Can't say I really cared. I kicked the body aside and cradled Percy's head in my hands. Gods, his skin was so warm. Much too warm. His fever had skyrocketed. Like, there was no way a temperature that high could be safe. His skin was deathly white, safe for the flushed cheeks and the skin around his ankles and wrists that was red and puffy where the skin wasn't broken and bleeding from rope burns.

What fucking killed me was the way his clothing had been situated. It was obvious his shirt had been pulled up and his pants pulled down part of the way. His bare chest was covered in bruises so dark they were almost black. His shallow breaths rattled in his chest and broke in his throat. He sounded more than halfway dead. He looked unconscious at first, but then he started mumbling things I couldn't make out. I'm not sure they were English, or Greek, or any other language.

He was delirious. By the gods, he was safe from his captors and I could still lose him.

"Get me an ambulance," I said, quiet as anything. "Now."

Both men scrambled to pull out their mobiles.

I just buried my head in the crook of my boyfriend's fevered neck, careful of his bruises, and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): So now you know what that crashing noise from last chapter was. And next chapter, enter Poseidon stage left.
> 
> Home for spring break. Damn, but I missed my kitties. Anubis is such a cuddle monster when he's been missing me. I just wish he wouldn't keep trying to steal my food - it makes me feel unloved. Oh, and btw, Pudgie's Pizza is a real NY company, or at least they used to be. I think they went out of business, which is a shame because they put the perfect amount of sauce on it - enough to drown a small country. Pudgie's did it right. I'm not bitter, whatever made you think that? Nooooo... *sips tea innocently*
> 
> Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic response to my story! I love you guys so much! Also, anybody in this fandom got any Percy/Ares bromance fic recommendations? I've tried looking, but none of them are actually any good, and nobody seems to read their relationship correctly. They have sort of an antagonistic big-brother/little-brother dynamic that is just too cute.


	7. I Need a Hug But This'll Do

Sam and Dean watched the whole thing. Annabeth was… well, she was kind of scary. She also reminded both boys of their mother – fierce, strong, fearless, blonde, beautiful, graceful, and pissed off like you wouldn't believe. Yeah, they weren't going to tangle with that. Particularly not when Momma Bear vibes rolled off her in waves. They'd done some stupid things in their day, but they weren't necessarily suicidal.

Things had been pretty textbook up until the demon had started talking about some weird shit that neither brother really understood. The way he spoke, it was like Annabeth and her boyfriend belonged to some kind of secret society of kid Hunters. Which would be kind of cool except for the part where they were clearly getting kidnapped and killed, because that was a whole basket of _no bueno_.

And then, he started talking in the skeeziest way possible, and she'd knifed the bastard. Dean was immensely proud of her and considering sticking his weapon under an armpit so he'd have both hands free to give her a round of applause. Sam was busy wondering just what her weapon was that it didn't kill the man, only the demon inside. He would have given a kidney and possibly a couple other choice organs for a weapon like that. Just because his job mostly entailed killing possessed people these days didn't mean that he liked it or found it one hundred percent morally agreeable.

Both were trying not to piss her off.

Then she made a beeline for the stairs down to what looked like a basement, and the boys followed. They'd established that whole don't-go-anywhere-alone thing, after all.

Sam sucked in a breath when he saw Percy tied down on the… well, it was probably a bed, but Sam felt "bed" to be too kind a word. A corpse next to the bed, blood still pooling around his head. Even from the awkward angle on the stairs, it was obvious that this was Levi, the human kidnapper. Sam didn't want to put away his weapon, though. Dean hadn't, either.

How could Levi be dead? And so newly killed? The closer Sam got, the more the wound on - no, correction: through – his forehead looked an awful lot like a bullet wound. But no gun had been fired. They would have heard it for certain. There were also no burn marks around the wound, no smell of gunpowder in the air, and no gun in sight. If the demon had killed Levi (unlikely, just because the demon had come from the upper floor, and how would he have had the time to kill Levi and then run upstairs, come downstairs, and get killed all in enough time that Levi would still be newly bleeding out on the floor), then when facing off with two Hunters and a girl who was probably Hunter born and bred, why hadn't he brought the gun with him? Poor planning, really. It more or less proved that the demon hadn't done away with Levi. And the only other suspect was… Percy.

Percy looked awful. Nightmarishly bad. Pale as the dead (and the boys would know), barely taking in air, clothes twisted around in ways that made Sam remember things he really would prefer never to remember. And all the damn bruising. It didn't escape Sam's attention that the wall by Percy's head was covering in little brown dots that looked a lot like dried blood. If the kid had been coughing up blood… lacerations in his lungs? Torn-up throat? Speaking of being torn up, his wrists were still bleeding on top of the old, dried stuff. It all looked so familiar that Sam had to swallow down bile. The point was that Percy, on top of being tied down, couldn't possibly have killed Levi.

Except Sam also knew that there were ways to kill people without lifting a finger.

He turned to Dean. Dean flicked his eyes over to his brother, then nodded at Percy and looked pointedly at the body of Levi on the floor. Okay, so Dean had picked up on it, too. Sam swallowed and jerked his head back towards the exit. Dean breathed deeply, but eventually nodded.

Percy and Annabeth obviously had things they didn't want to share. Percy had also probably killed that guy back there. Far as the Winchesters could tell, though, that had been pretty justified. Just this once… they could pretend they'd seen nothing. They would be long gone before the ambulance got here, and the cops with it.

\--

Poseidon

Scarce could I believe it when the wards came down. I'd been having at them for over a day now, and all of a sudden, they mysteriously drop? With no prompting? Unlikely. It didn't feel like a trap, though, much as the jaded part of my mind insisted that it might be. The rest of me was just chanting mysonmysonmysonohpleasebeall rightplease.

I could feel his mind much more clearly than I could before. It was slipping away from me again, though, like sand slipping through my open fingers. He was delirious with fever, and I could sense very little of his operational sanity. I could feel his powers groping around for anything. He was in danger and needed protection. Now. There was nothing I could do quickly enough to save him. His own powers were so dangerously out of control that I felt him – no. He couldn't. His own life force. It might be more constant, easier to grip for the addled mind, but using that… it would kill him. Even if he only took a small amount, it would erase decades of his life. I only had him for a short time as it was.

I wasn't losing him. Not my boy. Not my baby.

I did what I could. I gave him my strength, let him grip that, and use it to his own ends. I could just barely sense his overwhelming relief of success before he slipped away from me.

Honestly, I have no memory of the journey from Atlantis to the harbour of the Long Island Sound. I'm not certain my speed through the water didn't cause minor tsunamis on beaches all around the tri-state area. I'm even less certain that I would have cared if I had.

Even for mortal dwellings, the building was depressing and falling apart. In the name of avoiding alarming the locals, I used the form I always used on land. There were days when I saw that face in the mirror and marvelled at how much Percy looked exactly like me. A few more years on him and we would be almost identical. Triton made a fine heir, but Percy had obviously inherited more of me than my godly son had. Which was probably good, considering that neither Percy nor I had much sense when it came to avoiding dangerous situations like this. I still remembered Percy picking fights with both of my brothers and Ares and Kronos and Hermes all at the same time. That was something spectacular to behold. Terrifying, but spectacular. If my boy had no sense of self-preservation, I'd have to do all the work for him.

I went through the door (it seemed slightly more polite than just blowing the building down, although the temptation was almost too much to resist) and saw the reason for my delay, the reason for the wards.

A felled demon of the new religion.

In much the same way as the Romans were separated from the Greeks, so too were most religions kept in their respective fields, prevented from interacting with each other in the name of avoiding wars between them. I'd always assumed the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God had to have one monstrous headache from playing three roles all at once to the grand majority of the planet. The only time I'd seen a godly headache cured was when Zeus took an axe to his own head and Athena resulted. I'd prescribed Advil, but that's my brother for you. You stop questioning these things after a few hundred years.

At any rate, I had been forbidden from influencing a child of Christianity, and demons from the Christian Hell definitely counted. His presence had acted as a ward in and of itself. Now that it had been killed, the wards were gone. The stench of sulphur remained. I would have had a bone to pick with Lucifer if the little bastard had been around, but word on the street was that he'd been chucked back into the deepest, darkest levels of Hell where he belonged, and wasn't coming back out for another few hundred years or so. I could wait. I had all eternity.

Percy didn't.

I sensed Percy's life force pulsing weakly below the floor. I took the stairs.

The child Annabeth cradled my son, curled into his neck, crying quietly. As creaky as the stairs had been, it appeared that she hadn't noticed me, and the closer I got, the more I understood why.

Percy looked dead already. Eyes closed, breath scarce. Chest covered in bruises. Blood coating his arms. White like coral bleached from the sun, and every bit as waxen. He had obviously been tied down, although the ropes had been cut, presumably by Annabeth's celestial bronze dagger.

I walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped several inches into the air and a hand went straight to a weapon until she recognised me.

"P-Poseidon?" she asked, mouth tightening. She wiped away her tears as quickly as she could, eyes flicking down to Percy. Then her face hardened like stone and her mouth opened.

I interrupted before she could get there. "I couldn't come. There were wards I could not breach so easily. You know I would have been here sooner if I could have done so." She looked convinced, but still bitter. I could understand. I was pretty bitter myself, looking down on the limp form of my most precious child.

"There's an ambulance on the way," she mumbled.

"He needs Olympian medicine," I said. "With Achilles's Curse, no syringe and no surgical knife can pierce his skin. Proper mortal treatment would be impossible."

She gestured to his bruises. "What curse? It's gone now."

"It's still in place. It's a Greek blessing. The same force that prevented my involvement until the matter was all but over also negated the effects of the curse. It's all I can think of," I admitted. "I can definitely still feel its influence. It's still there; I swear."

"May… may I go with him? To Olympus, I mean?" She looked up at me with eyes so pained I couldn't possibly say no. Athena might never be a favourite of mine, but my son loved her daughter with a passion I hadn't known he had, and she obviously loved him back with the same intensity.

"I wouldn't think of denying you that. You saved my child, and for this, I owe you a great debt, Annabeth Chase."

She smiled in a hopeless kind of way and backed away to let me pick Percy up. His weight took me by surprise in that there wasn't enough of it. His illness had lasted for a while, in retrospect. It must have taken a greater toll on his overall health than anyone realised. His skin felt boiling hot against mine, which was often, I am told, cool to the touch like ocean water on a summer's day. He pressed his face against my neck, desperate for something to cool down his heated skin. Okay, so he wasn't quite unconscious – just delirious to the point of an inability to interact with his surroundings, or move too much. It didn't sound that much better to me, to be honest.

I really hoped Apollo knew what he was doing when it came to mortal medicine. Something told me he was a little out of practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): And from here on out, Sam and Dean are off doing gods know what and Percy is gonna chill in the infirmary of Olympus. Oh, and surgery is impossible. Ain't THAT the kicker. Oh man, but I have no idea how he's not gonna die. I haven't planned this far in the future. Momma's got some research to do before she comes back, my darlings.


	8. I Might Be Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs But I Still Don't Speak Farsi

Percy

I could hear voices. The words were impossible to make out, garbled and mushed together as my ears perceived them, but they were definitely voices. Familiar ones. First there was Annabeth's. At least I'm pretty sure it was Annabeth's. I couldn't think of any other voice with that exact pitch that might have a reason to be there. Not that I expected any of this to make sense – hallucinations didn't have to make sense in general. Then I could feel a soft face with curly hair press into the crook of my neck, holding me. I just sort of… relaxed. At first I didn't quite know what to make of it, just because I hadn't relaxed in – what had it been, a day and a half? Two days? Something. It was a foreign concept to me at that point, but I just melted in the presence of totally-hallucinated-Annabeth. It was okay. I mean, I was probably going to die, anyway. Better to go with good thoughts in my head. Thoughts of Annabeth and not thoughts of… him. I mentally stomped on the brakes and swung the steering wheel around. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think about it. I wasn't going to think about it. I was going to calm down and go with a smile on my face or something. It was going to be one of those deaths where everybody goes on and on at my funeral about how brave and awesome I was. I wanted the phrase "kicked ass and took names" engraved on my headstone. Nobody'd know if I cuddled a hallucinated girlfriend in my final hours. I was dying; I could do whatever the hell I wanted and nobody could tell me otherwise.

Not-Annabeth was crying into my neck. I wished dearly that she wouldn't. It reminded me too much of… no, I'd decided I wasn't going to think about him. My body remembered, even if my mind didn't want to, and it wanted to wriggle away from the sensation. I was a little ashamed. This was Annabeth, not him. I knew the difference. I knew she wasn't going to hurt me – couldn't hurt me, given that whole part where she couldn't be real. Wasn't I supposed to have some kind of control over these things? It's not like I'd been doing LSD and was having a bad trip or anything, nor was I schizo. Actually, I had no idea. I could be schizo. If we had a family history, I didn't know about it, but then again, I knew very little about the medical histories from either side of my family. Hera seemed pretty 'round the bend to me. I'm sure a lot of the other gods were poster children for mental illness.

My mind had been going in that direction, and I really shouldn't have been surprised when my hallucination veered in that direction, too. I could smell him. Dad. He smelled like the ocean, as always. Briny and yet somehow fresh, like newly fallen snow. Like home. Strong arms were picking me up and cradling me like I was something precious. Fake Dad's skin was so cool to the touch, and I was so overheated. It felt like heaven. I didn't have the strength to make a bad pun about that one. I tried to get as close to him as I could, but I just… I didn't have the strength to do much of anything.

Dad and Annabeth, huh? The only people whose love I'd ever needed… and then doubted. Years of thinking Annabeth didn't love me back. Near-constant fear that I wasn't good enough for Dad, that I was a disappointment or something. As much as my memories were still trying to slip away from me, I could still remember that when I needed Dad most, no help had come. I was still dying out here in gods-knew-where. Hallucinating. Great. Why did I still need his approval like I needed air?

I mean, I guess everybody intrinsically needs to know that they are loved. That's pretty fundamental. I just wish love were a little easier to come by in the real world.

He was whispering to me, words I couldn't make sense of. Fingers carded through my hair and pushed the sweat-slicked locks out of my eyes and face. It was pretty useless, because my stupid hair would fall right back down anyway, but his fingers were cooling me down and I wasn't complaining. That temperature felt amazing. If I could dunk my head in the Arctic right about now, I wouldn't think twice.

No matter how gentle he was with me, stuff still hurt. My ribs still pounded with a dull, throbbing ache. My throat had been scraped raw. My head might have been in pain, but it was swimming so much, I couldn't tell. My wrists and ankles stung. One of my wrists still felt like I'd dislocated a bone. My stomach needed some frickin' food in it, but I couldn't think of anything that might get down my throat without irritating it further. Oh, yeah. I also probably had pneumonia.

Wait, a…

Hey.

Hold up just a damn minute.

From just staying still, lying down on the bed, I shouldn't be aggravating any of my injuries. Yeah, they'd still ache a little, but so long as I hadn't moved, I shouldn't have felt any new pains. So why did I? I didn't have the strength to move on my own, and even if I did, I'd still be tied down. Except I clearly wasn't because my arms were hanging straight down. I was definitely free. My bonds were cut and somebody had me.

Dad.

Annabeth.

They were real.

They came for me. They loved me. It was all going to be okay. If Dad was interfering, it meant he was throwing caution to the wind and was going to help me however much he felt like helping. The rule book had been burned. He came after all. Relief came first. I wasn't going to die. Probably. I didn't think they were keen on letting me die, at least, and nobody ever tells Annabeth what she can and cannot do. Dad had basically invented the category of badass, so three cheers for that. Plus, Apollo was the god of healing, and he liked me okay. If he couldn't patch me up, I was nine kinds of screwed. At least I'd go out knowing that nothing could be done.

I'd go out being loved and cared for. Wasn't that all that mattered?

\--

Poseidon

Apollo had gotten my Iris message and had been awaiting our arrival. He immediately took charge and whisked Percy away to what we had left of an infirmary. The raging of Kronos had decimated half the building, and the repair teams hadn't felt any urgency to fix the place up right away, given that gods were almost never injured for long and were never ill, Zeus's freak asexual reproductive migraines aside. Moreso than anything, it existed in Olympus as a temple to the medical aspect of Apollo.

"Do you have what you need?" I asked. "This place seems… understocked."

Apollo's mouth tightened. "We'll figure out something. I'm not gonna let the little dude kick it just because we're low on bacitracin."

"What is-"

"Antibiotic. Widespread access to it causes a whole grunch of antibiotic-resistant epidemics, so… yeah. We're not friends and I can't say I wanted it in my infirmary, anyway. Criminey." He rolled his eyes. "What's a guy gotta do to get a hot nurse who gets all his technical talk?"

Percy groaned in Apollo's arms. I agreed.

"That bed over there'll work just dandy. Can you move the – yeah, the covers. Thanks." As irresponsible and bizarre as I'd always thought my nephew to be, he laid Percy down with the greatest of care, gentle and soft in every movement. He carefully pulled the sheets back over Percy's still form, then went rooting around for something in the room. He hooted upon finding it.

I raised an eyebrow. "An oxygen tank? He needs one of those?"

Apollo shot me a grin and yanked the mask and hose off of the tank. The damn thing all but exploded. "Are you insane?" I hissed. The rapidly decompressing oxygen hissed louder, the tank jerking in Apollo's hand.

"First things first, uncle. There's blood on his lower lip and chin. A little's on his shoulder too, where he turned his head and coughed. Kid's been coughing up some blood. My fantastic and awesome sense of… stuff… says that's the result of a lacerated lung. Problem: kid's got that Achilles issue. Normally, you just go in and patch up the lung if it's not too bad off and you catch it early. That, or if the damage is too bad, you remove the part of the lung that's wrecked and sew the healthy parts back together and boom – lung is fixed. Both require that you not be immune to scalpels and surgical scissors and suture needles. Catching my drift?"

"What's that got to do with an oxygen mask?" I said.

Apollo giggled. Flat-out giggled. I should just call the poor boy's mother right now. "Point is, my good cousin here needs a kind of healing he can't get from me – but he can get it from you."

My heart leapt. "F-from me? I am no healer, Apollo."

"And yet getting into a fight with pesahr here in the water is not unlike fighting a land war in Asia."

"You are not Mithra. Keep going."

"One little identity crisis and you never let me hear the end of it," Apollo grumbled. "Still. Water can heal his wounds is my point. We're not gonna hook him up to oxygen –" He grabbed the hose and offered it to me "-we're gonna hook him up to water. Basically, you. Tally ho and away we go."

"And you think that'll work?"

"I know that'll work. He can breathe water just like he can breathe air, except it'll heal his internal injuries without me having to cut him open, which, reminder, I can't do. It's not going to hurt him at all, so long as you keep the water pressure nice and low. Let it circulate and all. The pressure's what caused the damage in the first place."

Annabeth – how had I somehow forgotten that she was right behind us? – raised her hand timidly. "Uh – Apollo? Sir? What about the… well, the…" she gestured helplessly to the bruising all over Percy's side. "I'm pretty sure there's at least one broken rib in there. If that's what punctured his lung, what's to stop it from happening again? Will the water heal that, too?"

Apollo frowned. "The water's not going to be able to reach the rib. Once the lung heals right up, which shouldn't take long at all, access is blocked. He's gonna have to rough it on that one. Wait for it to heal like regular mortals do. It won't re-mess-up his lung, though, 'cause it didn't do it in the first place."

"Huh?"

"Nah. Lacerated lungs are from blunt trauma, not punctures from bone fragment. That, like, never happens. Okay, here and there, but not enough to mean anything. Basically, whoever whumped on our boy here hit him so hard, his lung gave out. Like a balloon when you squeeze it too hard." Apollo's eyes were dark, his energetic body suddenly still and full of anger.

"This being said, who did it?" he asked, his voice low. "Who thought it might be cute to beat the ever-loving shit out of my cousin and please-oh-please tell me there's something left of him that I can fry."

Annabeth shook her head. She smiled a little, dull eyes momentarily lighting up with pride. "Percy took care of the bastard himself. I'm afraid there's nothing left for anyone but Hades."

Apollo openly sulked. "Man, Uncle Hades gets all the fun. Y'think he'd let me slip into the Underworld? Just this once? It's for a good cause."

"Not on your life," I said. "So I just… what? Send water through here?" I pointed to the open end of the tube where it was supposed to be attached to the oxygen tank.

Apollo situated the oxygen mask onto Percy's face, gently lifting his head to get the straps on properly. "Give it a go. Go as slow as you can for… I'm gonna say five minutes." He breathed deeply. "If it works, it works, and if it doesn't… well, we'll try for something different. It's the only thing I can think of right now, and if we don't patch up his internal injuries soon, he's going to be beyond any kind of help."

I felt chills down my spine. My son's life rested quite literally in my hands. A little water and a little plastic tube. The whole thing felt surreal and impossible. I'd never done anything like it before.

My powers summoned a small trickle of seawater, directing it down the hose to Percy's mask. I could see it filling the corners. Soon, it would more closely resemble a water tank than an oxygen mask. Percy's small breaths continued fogging up the plastic.

"That's it. Keep going."

Annabeth took hold of Percy's hand. She caught my look and blushed. "Just in case he panics or something," she said.

I hated to admit it, but she was right. My son had been the victim of too many abuses to count. I hadn't been there to save him from any of them. I'd done what I could, but none of it was enough, and I knew that. Annabeth knew it. Percy probably knew it, too. Why should he trust me to protect and heal him? He had no reason to. He'd trusted me once, maybe, a little. I'd broken that trust, and there was no guarantee I'd get it back.

But then I heard something that stopped my heart.

Percy. A groan. A shift. Fevered eyes flicking open, closing again. Eyelids beating like hummingbird wings. Hazy recognition of the three figures surrounding his bed.

And the words, whispered soft on a breath of air and almost as transient.

"You came for me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): Friendly reminder that right now, Percy's delusional and a little crazy. There is no filter on his internal dialogue, and it's not supposed to make a lot of sense when you look more closely at it. Loosely grasped, it has meaning, but it's all kind of weird, repeating concepts because they're all his brain can really process. He's out of his mind a wee bit right now, and I meant for that to show up in his internal monologue.
> 
> "Pesahr" is Persian/Farsi for "boy". Mithra is the Zoroastrian sun god. Zoroastrianism was the Persian religion at the same time the Greek and Roman empires were happening. Well, more like when the Roman nation was first getting up on its hind legs and thinking about becoming an empire. Basically, that whole thing is a mythology joke that no-one but me is ever going to get. My headcanon is that all of the old god pantheons kind of knew each other and interacted a bit. Pre-Islamic Persian and Greek cultures are very similar if you look. They also had significant dealings with one another, sort of like how the Romans and Egypt were cozy. Anyway, Apollo strikes me as the sort of guy who would try to look super-cultured and spout foreign languages at random, particularly little snippets that he's learned from hearing his friends speak it.


	9. It Didn't Hurt Until You Told Me Why It Should

Percy

"You came for me," I said.

And holy crap-weasels, my actual voice came out. My voice! I had one again! Salt water trickled down my throat and into my lungs, which felt a little weird – normally I breathed either water or air and not so much a mixture of the two. Every rivulet felt amazing, though. Every sore spot in my throat throbbed once in farewell and then receded. I could have cried. I'm not entirely sure I didn't. My vocal chords were repairing themselves and I could speak again. Praise the saints. Or, well, praise Dad, actually, because I could vaguely make out the blurry collection of Hawaiian print and a shock of black hair that was pretty unmistakeable. Also, I wasn't dumb enough to assume that seawater just pops up out of nowhere without a little help from Dad or me.

Okay, so my throat was doing better (and, come to think of it, my lungs started feeling a little stronger, although that damn busted rib was still whining), but the fever was still bad. I get brain damage enough from blunt force trauma without fevers cooking my noggin. I'd prefer to keep it that way. Hang on, that didn't come out right.

"Of course we came, Percy. How could you ever think we wouldn't?" Annabeth said.

I didn't have an answer to that, so I just groaned out something to cover for me.

"He's still out of it, I think," Annabeth said. I rolled my head in the direction of her voice but I couldn't focus my eyes on her.

"Annabeth?" I said. Still wasn't over the fact that I could do that.

"Hey, Percy. Hey, baby… I need you to be calm for me, okay? Don't try to move around or talk too much. Can you do that for me?" Her hand, cool and clean, brushed some of my hair out of my eyes and cupped a cheek.

"Mmnot five y'rs old," I said.

"Shhh, I know you're not, Percy. It's okay. Apollo's going to try to patch you up. We're going to get you back on your feet; you'll see. Right now, you aren't… you're not doing so good-"

"Don't I know it," I said.

"-and we need you not to push yourself. You're only going to damage your system. So can you please do that for me? Just nod or shake your head."

I nodded. The room spun like crazy when I did it, just like I knew it would, but there you go. The stuff we do for love.

She kissed my cheek and we shot each other weak smiles. She was still holding one of my hands in hers. Yeah; a guy could get used to this.

Annabeth turned to Apollo. "He feels really warm. He's got a bad fever."

"Yeah, I noticed that, too." Was that Apollo? I hadn't heard his voice in ages and hadn't remembered that it sounded like that. Or maybe my brain was seriously addled at this point. Both perfectly valid options. "His core temperature needs to be lower than 105, if you're going by Fahrenheit. Much higher and his brain is going to fry like an egg on the concrete in summer. Judging by his skin temperature…" the back of someone's fingers felt my forehead "… I'm gonna say we don't have much leeway. This is going to be a right-now thing." Hang on. When had I closed my eyes? It just seemed so much easier to let it all slip away. I couldn't think. I didn't really feel like opening my eyes. Annabeth's hand on mine and Dad's water in my lungs were both things that grounded me, kept me safe. Nothing was going to happen to me while they were there. It was all going to be okay. I didn't need to strain myself. In fact, I'd promised not to, so there. Nobody would blame me for nodding off. It had been a long day full of emotional turmoil and dinosaur fights, and in lieu of a nice cup of tea, I could go for some oblivion.

Yeah, that'd do me just fine.

\--

Annabeth

"No, no, don't let him do that!" Apollo yelped. "Don't let him fall asleep just yet!"

"Percy? Percy, wake up. Percy?" I said, shaking him as hard as I dared. He stirred briefly, a low groan issuing from his throat, muffled by the oxygen/water mask. That was all I got, though, and then he went limp again. "He's not waking up."

"Well, shit."

I was panicking, and even Poseidon looked pale. "Why did he need to stay conscious? What has happened?" he asked.

Apollo's mouth tightened. "Willowbark tea is the best natural cure for fevers. Problem is, it increases blood flow. If he's got any internal bleeding we don't know about, willowbark could make it exponentially worse. We needed to ask him if he was in any pain, while he's in any condition to answer, but that's shot. We've got no choice. We've got to go for an ice bath."

My eyebrows shot up. "Isn't that really dangerous?" From what I knew of non-injury-related medicine, which was precious little, ice baths were a last-resort kind of thing. Yes, they brought the patient's core temperature down, and quickly – they just had a bad habit of bringing their temperatures too low and sending them into hypothermia. That kind of stress on an already-weak body could make the heart just give out. My own heart started thudding in my chest, resounding in my ears.

"No." To my surprise, Poseidon answered. "Percy is able to survive the sub-zero temperatures in the depths of the ocean with no problem. Ice will not hurt him."

Well, that was a relief. Still, the abrupt turnaround from too-hot to too-cold couldn't be good for him. As long as we kept a close eye on his core temperature, it would all be okay, right? Except… "Do you really think he might have internal bleeding?" I asked Apollo.

"I dunno," he said. "As things are, there's pretty much no reliable way to tell. Most of the tests I'd normally do? They're not going to work on Mister Invulnerable over here. I can't take blood samples 'cause needles are a no-go. The ultrasound and CT scanner got blasted when Kronos came through. I've got no way to look for blood loss. I mean, I put in a work order ages ago for Hephaestus to fix the CT scanner, but he told me it'll be ready in a day or two. The fever's the immediate problem. We at least can do something about that right now. This being said: Annabeth. You 'n' I are going to go grab Khione."

Khione. Where had I heard that name? I'm sure it had come up in my readings at some point in time, but I obviously hadn't thought it relevant information, or I would have retained it. I was going to feel stupid and ignorant if I had to ask, though. Apollo seemed to know what he was doing and that was good enough for me. Besides, Percy was going to be with his father while Apollo and I were gone.

"Uncle? If you could find a large tub. Something big enough for Percy to lie down. Even a big box would do the trick. Line it with blankets from some of the other beds if you can. I mean, first make sure Percy's lungs are working okay. Then the tub thing. We'll be back," Apollo said, and whisked me out the door.

\--

Poseidon

Oh, my child. For only a few minutes, he'd been awake and wisecracking, weak though he was. He'd even smiled. Through all of the pain I knew he must be feeling, he still smiled. And I hadn't been able to say a word before he drifted away again, limp and unresponsive. But he was breathing much more easily than he had been, and his face was more relaxed. The slight rising and falling of his chest was mesmerising. Gods didn't need to breathe, and it had been a while since I'd last really noticed the breathing patterns of a mortal.

I shifted from the foot of the bed where I'd been sitting to the right of Percy, where Annabeth had been moments before. With my free hand, I grasped Percy's. The fever had stretched even to his very fingertips. His whole hand was very warm, muted by callus though it was. This was a warrior's hand, curved so delicately in mine. This hand had imprints left from leather-wrapped sword hilts and shield straps. My child had never quite been allowed to be a child, had he? He'd spent eleven years of his life alone with his mother, trying desperately to protect her from things he didn't understand and couldn't fight. A stepfather who stole their money, forced them into perpetual poverty, and injured them both when he'd had a chance. To be honest, had Sally not taken Percy's advice and ridden herself of the swine, I would have done it myself.

I hadn't apologised for leaving them both high and dry in that situation, either. I had done them both a great disservice, Percy most of all. The stupid laws of Olympus were a pathetic excuse for treating our sons and daughters like garbage, or old toys that we picked back up only when we got bored or needed them for something. How many times had Percy needed me and never called me? Had never done so because he didn't expect an answer? Was I a last resort because I was the least reliable aspect of his life? I didn't want to be that. I never wanted to be that. I had tried over and over to impress upon Percy that I loved him dearly. We both knew that saying it aloud was next to meaningless. Showing it was another matter entirely, and one I should have concerned myself with more.

But he was still with me. His chest still rose and fell. His heart still beat; I could feel his pulse under my own callused fingers. It wasn't too late.

"Percy," I said, my voice rough, "I'm sorry. I have hurt you. Maybe not directly, but your pain is still my responsibility. You've never asked me for any real help, but that should not stop me from giving it, particularly when I can see it, plain as day. I love you, my boy, and if it is the last thing I ever accomplish, I am going to make certain you are never alone again."

He couldn't hear me, but it was all I could do. It was all I had to offer.

My eyes, clouded from unshed tears as they were, almost missed the fluttering behind Percy's eyelids. Almost.

"Percy?" I asked. "Are you awake? You don't have to open your eyes; just… squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

One of his fingers twitched, pressing into the meat of my hand. I could have kissed the boy, and I'm still a little surprised I didn't. I just gripped his hand all the tighter.

"You're not alone, my son. I'm here. I'm not leaving you. Does… Is your throat still bothering you?" I asked. "Er, one tap for yes and two for no."

Two taps from Percy, and a quirk on his face that might've been a smile. A smile that was all for me. If I was a little giddy, I admitted it to no-one.

"Then I can stop with the mask?"

One tap. Yes.

I slowed the flow of water, eventually stopping it. I tilted the hose to empty it of the extra fluid, then tried to figure out exactly how getting the mask off was going to work. In the end, I ordered the water inside to float right where it was and gently lifted Percy's head to undo the straps, lifting it off of his face. His eyelids fluttered even more at the motion. Slowly, with the water levitated away from his face and into the neighbouring sink, his eyes opened a tiny sliver, gazing straight at me.

"Dad?" he whispered.

"Yes, my boy. It's me." I cupped his face in both my hands, kissing his forehead. His temperature hadn't improved at all.

He seemed hesitant. "I… I thought maybe… Never mind."

Panic reared in my mind. "No. No, never. I – I was prevented from touching you. There were wards. I tried to break them, I swear. Every god and goddess in Atlantis was drafted to try to break the wards. We couldn't do it. In the end, Annabeth broke them, from what she has told me. We'll both explain it better later. Please, Percy, never ever believe that I would leave you there. I would never abandon you to the likes of that man."

It didn't need to be said that in a way, I'd already done as much once before.

Neither of us called me on my lies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): Crap chapter. Don't really know what to do about that. I'm not going to be able to update for the next few days because I'm getting whammied with a shit-ton of tests as soon as I get back from break. You university people know how it is. Especially if you're majoring in Chemistry like I am.


	10. Jack Frost Nippin' At Your - HEY, THAT AIN'T MY NOSE

Annabeth

As Apollo dragged me along a hallway, making for the exit of the infirmary, my mind drifted a little. Percy's fever was raging no matter how much sweat his body poured out, trying to lower its own temperature. His clothes – pajamas, more like – were already soaked through with sweat and dotted with blood from where he'd been coughing. If I were Percy, I'd want fresh, clean clothes that I hadn't been abducted and beaten in. Not jeans, obviously. Too rough and too likely to catch on bedsheets. There had to be something around Olympus that he could wear. The poor thing couldn't be expected to run around naked.

Not that I was thinking about him naked, obviously.

Actually, that was true. He was still covered in bruises. I don't think any of us wanted or needed the reminder of his treatment. Whatever. I'd find him new clothes that did not reek of sweat and the filth of that house by the docks.

But who the hell was Khione? My memory still hadn't come through for me, and Apollo wasn't clearing anything up.

"Er – Apollo? Sir?" I had a rough time dealing with Apollo. I'd heard plenty about him from Percy, but I'd never met the god personally. I'd been sort-of kind-of kidnapped, along with his sister, when they'd met Apollo. Was it a friend-of-my-friend thing? Was I allowed to adopt that kind of familiarity? Talking to gods had to be one of the trickiest social hurdles of all time. Percy basically bantered with every god he met, whether they were okay with it or not. He had the social grace of a rhino in a china shop, which is probably why Ares liked him so much. Poseidon was tough to read, but I think he was biased in Percy's favour in general. Everybody else just sort put up with him because he was easily the most competent hero we'd had in centuries. As long as they get the job done, who cares how insufferable they are, right? I did not have that get-out-of-jail-free card. Even if I did, I don't think I'd ever exercise it.

"Hm?" Apollo finally seemed to realise that I'd spoken. "What?"

"I thought we were going to get ice, but then you said something about Khione?" I asked.

"Yeah. Same thing. Khione's the daughter of, er… what's-his-face. The North Wind god."

"Boreas?"

"Yeah, him. We don't talk much. Khione's the snow goddess. Kinda nuts all around, and she calls me 'bloody git', and she has a thing for freezing heroes solid and then keeping their statues as home décor, but I'm sure she'll help us out. Chopped-up ice is much less comfortable a bed than fresh snow, wouldn't you say?"

Nothing Apollo said made me feel any better. We were all going to die.

Something must have shown on my face because Apollo started laughing. "Oh, c'mon! She's not that bad! Don't worry; I'm not going to let her freeze you. Or Percy, come to think of it. Usually she'll do me little favours if I fly a little higher so the sun doesn't melt her snow quite as much. I figure I can barter like that," he said. "The southern states will get a little mini-blizzard next winter, but they'll get over it."

Then, to my vague surprise, we side-stepped the exit and went into a different room just to the left of it. Apollo snapped his fingers and the lights hummed into being.

It was a small room with an obvious purpose in mind: Iris messaging. A fountain was arranged in the centre of the room with little sprays of water, lights around the rim of the basin positioned in just such a way that a rainbow was always present.

Apollo patted his pockets. "Er, kid? Sorry, Annabeth? You got any spare change? I don't carry around stuff that jingles if I can help it."

Anybody else and I'd have shot them my not-impressed face. I only barely held it in check as it was. I forked over a drachma. Maybe I'd bother the Apollo cabin to reimburse me later or something. Apollo took it with no delay and chucked it into the fountain. "Yo, Iris! Do yo' thang! Khione, if you'd be so kind." The air began to ripple. I couldn't help the way my expression instantly morphed into my what-the-hell face. "What?" Apollo said. "You act like there's some kind of script for this stuff."

A face began to form and solidify in the image. She was pale, almost deathly white, with long, straight white hair. She was also most definitely irritated the instant she laid eyes on Apollo.

"And what, pray tell, do you want, you blithering idiot?" she asked.

"That's the blithering idiot who's got a throne in the hall of Olympus to you."

"I hope you choke on a haiku."

"Lovely Khione/ My cousin Percy is sick/ Give me some damn snow," Apollo said. I could have slapped myself in the face. I could have slapped him in the face. I probably should have.

Her eyes narrowed. "In dark Alaska/ The winter bears no sunrise/ so fuck if I care." Ooh. Burn. Or, given that she was a snow goddess, frostbite? Freezer burn? I wasn't sure how to term it.

"I'll make it worth your while," Apollo sang.

She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "…Really, now?"

"Name your price."

"Next winter. A foot of snow in North Carolina."

"Five inches."

"Eight."

"Done."

"How much snow do you want right now?" Khione asked.

"Er… however much it would take to fill a bathtub, I guess. Hang on; I've got some buckets around here somewhere." He darted off through the door. I just sort of stood there awkwardly. The goddess and I ignored each other's presence, which was probably for the best. Okay, so maybe my social graces weren't much more advanced than Percy's. I just pissed off fewer people doing it my way.

Apollo, thankfully, was quick about it, and returned shortly carrying three massive buckets that looked like they were meant for industrial work. "These'll work, right?"

"Yeah, I guess. Also, if you melt it before it sees use, I'm not giving you any more, Apollo," Khione said peevishly.

"Yeah, yeah." The Iris message ran out of time, and Khione faded from view.

An icy wind suddenly swept through the room, chilling me to my bones. I was still wearing my t-shirt from camp, and my bare arms complained loudly. Apollo didn't seem to notice. Then I saw it. The wind seemed to be carrying something. Little white specs that appeared to be growing fatter all the while, clumping together and somehow falling directly into the buckets. Well, Khione came through on her promises; that was something. How long was this crap going to take? I suppose the snow was falling rather quickly… but we were kind of in a rush. Snow took a while to accrue – as a New York girl, I knew that perfectly well. Granted, the weather in Camp Half-Blood was predictable and temperate all year round, so it had been a while since I'd seen snow on a regular basis, but no child really forgets the joy of watching snow come down for the first time. I also had some family upstate that we went to visit on occasion, and the snow up there in the winter often piled so high it came up to my hips. They used to make me dig out the hot tub because "you're young; you'll adjust" – whatever the hell that meant. I think it was code for "I'm old and lazy and you are young and therefore free labour". Whatever. Not the point.

A full three minutes had passed, if my internal clock was correct (it was), and the buckets were not even a fourth of the way full. Percy needed this stuff now. Would it kill Khione to hurry up a little?

Percy

Dad left to find something. A bathtub, I think it was. Crazy stuff. Why would he need a bathtub? He spent a lot of time underwater; surely he couldn't get too dirty. Actually, no. Taking it back. I'd seen enough of the house where I'd been kept to know I could use a good bath (or twenty) myself. A cool bath, though. My head ached so bad I wanted to beat it on a wall to relieve the pressure. Not that my legs would have supported me if I'd tried to get up. At the risk of being gross, it felt like my eyeballs were trying to explode. Why did fevers do that? I mean, heat equals greater pressure when the volume is kept constant, I get that. Idiot-level physics. But a couple of degrees' worth of temperature difference shouldn't make me feel like my head was trying to contain an exploding grenade. I was starting to see the appeal in taking an axe to my forehead. It didn't help that my stomach was rolling. Illness equals mucus, which unfortunately rolls down the throat and into the stomach, were it reacts with stomach acids to produce a whole world of ew. If you've eaten something, you barely notice it, but if you haven't, it's nauseating like you wouldn't believe. Which is a little… I dunno. It feels like that's the opposite of how it should work. Food is what'll make you feel better, but the nausea makes you reject the food. There's a word for that. I can't think of it. May as well add dysnomia to my list of defects. Were spots supposed to be dancing in front of my eyes? Was that supposed to happen? Was the lighting flickering or was that just me? I mean, the place got trashed recently; it would kind of make sense if the wiring wasn't one hundred percent.

Or maybe I was in serious trouble. When wasn't I? I was about to start laughing hysterically at my own luck when Annabeth came in, lugging two massive industrial-sized buckets filled to the brim with… was that snow? Shaved ice? What the hell?

On the other hand, snow cones sounded amazing right now.

Apollo came in, holding a third bucket as far away from himself as possible. That one looked like it was starting to melt, and I suddenly understood why Annabeth had been stuck carrying the other two.

Apollo looked around the room, frowning. I knew who he was looking for. "Dad went to look for… I think it was a tub or something." Apollo nodded.

Annabeth dumped her burdens on the floor by my bed and took up her old chair, holding my hand in one of hers and feeling my forehead with the other. Her hands were ice cold and I relished every second of it, groaning a little. I was sick; give a break.

Dad was suddenly back (when had that happened? Did I black out for a second there, or…?) with what looked more like one of those kiddie inflatable pools, except it was made of wood, like a short, very wide barrel. I had no idea what it actually was, but if it functioned all right, who cared?

They were exchanging quiet words, and though I couldn't make much of anything out, I imagined Apollo was trying to give Dad crap about taking so long and Dad griping back about how poorly Apollo's hospital was organised and how impossible it was to find anything in this half-collapsed death trap. Judging from the muted and petulant mutters coming from both of them, I wasn't far off.

Annabeth dragged over one of the buckets of ice, shaking its contents out into the… basin? Close enough. She and Dad spread it out with their hands while Apollo nudged another bucket their way. His presence had melted it even further. That bucket's contents were dumped in and spread out, too. Apollo made himself useful by stripping the bed next to me, laying the sheets out over the ice, which had been pushed around to make a long groove in the middle, big enough for someone to lie down in.

Suddenly, it clicked. They wanted me in there. Well, I had said I wanted a cool bath, hadn't I? There were worse things. Once I made a snow angel in my swim trunks. Couldn't feel my butt for the next ten minutes, but that's what you get when you take stupid dares.

Then there were hands on my arm, ever-so-gentle. Annabeth.

"Percy? We need to take your pajamas off. I've got clean ones right here that we're going to change you into, okay? It might hurt your ribs a little, but just bear with me." Her voice sounded far away.

And suddenly hands were lifting my shirt.

No.

Nononononononono.

It was him, he was touching me, he was hurting me, I couldn't do this anymore, I just wanted to go home and for him to stop touching me and just leave me alone pleasepleaseplease-

I could barely see anything from all the spots in front of my eyes, but I could smell him, foul and unwashed, breathing directly into my space and his lips on my neck and no.

My ribs and my wrist screamed with me as I thrashed on the bed, trying to throw him off of me. I wasn't bound now. I wasn't just going to take it now.

Voices, so very far away, were begging me to calm down, saying that something wasn't real. What wasn't? Because I was damn sure it all had really happened, and I was even surer that I wasn't going to let it happen again.

I couldn't breathe. Why couldn't I breathe? I had managed to push myself halfway off of the bed on adrenaline alone, but it wasn't enough, and my knee buckled beneath me as I crashed into waiting arms, the pressure in my head finally knocking me mercifully unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> سلام وعصر بخیر. سال نو مابارک! نوروز مي ايد! مادره من سرما خورد. ه بد. و شما؟ شما چطور هستین؟ چه خبر؟
> 
> (A/N): Anyone who says Chemistry is a fun major that won't have you crying yourself to sleep at night is lying. Punch them. I'm going to go watch cartoons and eat my new year garlic apple cider chicken with rice now. Also, let's try not to set ourselves on fire again this year, okay?
> 
> Got tired of my old pen name and decided to change it up a bit. Haurvatat is a goddess of water and is also kind of a metaphor for perfection. It fits in with my newfound love of the Percy Jackson and Supernatural fandoms while retaining a bit of meaning from my old pen name.


	11. Hey, I EARNED That Title, Damn It ( I AM the Sass Master)

Annabeth

Sweat had soaked through his clothes. They were wet with it and clinging to him like a second skin. If we packed him into the ice like that, the cold would get to the sweat. He'd be drenched in ice-cold liquid, and probably get pneumonia, which we all could really live without at the moment. I'd planned on changing his clothes after the ice pack, but there wasn't much choice. We had to handle it now to keep him as comfortable as possible.

Apollo directed me to a tiny closet off to the side when I asked, and I guesstimated Percy's clothing sizes. He was thin, yes, but lanky and tall as the day is long. Medium would work, right? I didn't even know what clothing sizes I wore, let alone what anyone else wore.

Percy was obviously drifting in and out of consciousness, not quite all there. He mumbled nonsense words. I'm not even sure he knew he was doing it. In places it sounded like English, and then it sounded like Greek, and then Russian. I have no idea where he would have heard Russian. The only word that I could make out in the lot of it was "angel". No idea what that meant. Certainly not hoping he was talking about me. Nope. Not a bit.

"Percy? We need to take your pajamas off. I've got clean ones right here that we're going to change you into, okay? It might hurt your ribs a little, but just bear with me," I said, soft as I could. As long as I was very careful not to jar his ribs, it shouldn't hurt him too much. I wasn't stupid enough to think I could avoid hurting him entirely, but at least I could minimise the pain. It would be best if I could slide his shirt off so he wouldn't have to move his torso off the bed.

I have no idea why I did such a stupid thing.

Of course this sort of thing would bring back bad memories. He just… He had been so upbeat before. He was sick, sure, but he'd been making jokes and been the ridiculous Sass Master he'd always been – self-appointed title, by the way. I had thought for a minute that he was fine. We were fine. He'd heal up and then everything would go back to normal. Maybe it had all been wishful thinking. Except I knew perfectly well what Percy was like. He'd probably been faking it all along to keep me from worrying, the dumb fuck. I should have known, but I didn't, and then went ahead and screwed up everything.

And then he was screaming and thrashing like a cornered wildcat, heaving air and expending energy that he didn't have to spare.

"Please! Please, Percy, no! It's me! It's Annabeth, baby, please calm down. It's just us. Percy? It's not real, love – please listen to me! It's not real!" I begged. I was dimly aware that Poseidon was making similar appeals. My first instinct was to grab his hand to calm him down, but for one, physical contact seemed like a very bad idea for Percy's sake, and for another, his arms were swinging every which way and would make it very difficult to achieve anything of the sort.

One leg swung out from under the blanket. Oh, no. No no no. He wasn't strong enough, but the dumbass was going to try to do it anyway. All to get away from me. Or – I guess – to get away from Levi. If the sick son of a bitch wasn't already dead, I'd kill him. "Percy? Percy, you've got to get back in bed. Please, you can't get up yet, your fever –"

His fever beat me to the punch as his knee buckled and he fell out of the bed in a collapsed heap into his father's arms.

"Percy," Poseidon whispered, all emotion in his face shutting down, like I'd seen Percy do whenever he was scared but didn't want to say anything. Percy himself was completely still, to my surprise. I'd thought male arms holding him would freak him out even more. Unless…

He wasn't moving. Oh gods, he wasn't moving.

Apollo obviously figured out the coast was clear and that Percy wasn't going to try to bash his head in. He rushed over and pressed a hand to Percy's forehead. His mouth tightened. "Get him in the ice. Now."

"It's that bad?"

"It's gotten higher. If it stays like this, he risks major brain damage. He overtaxed himself just now. No wonder he passed out," Apollo said.

Poseidon lay his son down in the divot we'd made in the centre of the packed snow, a blanket from a neighbouring bed preventing direct contact that could do nerve damage. Percy still hadn't so much as twitched. I half expected the snow to start steaming as he was laid down, blanket or no blanket.

"Get another blanket," Apollo said. I ran to obey. "Put it over him. Make sure it covers him up to the neck. Get the other bucket and pack the rest of the snow in around him. I'll keep an eye on his temperature, make sure it doesn't go too low."

"How soon should we expect a change?" Poseidon asked.

Apollo just shook his head. "Can't say. He's your son, which makes this whole thing a little trickier."

"What sort of nonsense is that?"

"Normal humans don't share the physical properties of water in certain circumstances. In case you hadn't noticed, water has a damn high heat capacity. It's one of the reasons why biology likes it so much – it makes it easier for warm-blooded animals to maintain a constant temperature, because it takes a crap-ton of heat to make any difference. Your kid's a little wetter than most, which means this is going to go slower than normal. How much? Who knows? We're doing everything we can as it is, so forgive me my impudence, Uncle, but quit bitching at me unless you've got something useful to say."

I could only stare, blinking stupidly. Apollo's eyes were blazing. He was furious, although I couldn't help but think that his anger wasn't entirely with Poseidon. My gut twisted. Maybe he was mad at me for starting all this and making his job harder. Oh gods, this whole thing was my fault. Percy was going to get brain damage because I'd been too stupid to figure out that stripping a sexual assault victim might be a little bad for their mental stability.

And there was another thought all its own: PTSD flashbacks or fever-induced hallucinations? Was this going to be a problem long after his fever broke (if it was ever going to break and no I did not just think that) or would he really be okay once the hurdle of his illness was behind us? Were there even therapists for demigods? Ones that would be okay with the idea of Percy killing a mortal, even if it was obviously self-defence? He probably wouldn't even want to go to therapy. Would probably get offended that I'd even bring it up. If he even remembered this episode later, with his brain all fried, I'd be much surprised. Probably a crap-ton of "Jeez, Annabeth, I got it under control. Don't worry about it," like he always frickin' did, whether it was true or not. Usually not. He'd only let me help by the time it was almost too late, as usual. When it came to quests and achieving "blank" end-goal, Percy was great at asking for help and letting the experts take charge. Bring up personal well-being and all of a sudden it's like teaching poetry to fish.

I watched Percy's face closely for any sign of regaining consciousness, or maybe discomfort that would show that we needed to get him out of there or something. He remained stubbornly still. He was breathing steadily, at least. It was nice not to hear his breath rattling around his chest like it had before Apollo had come up with that water-in-the-lungs trick for him. I'd have to remember that one the next time Percy got sick.

His hair was in his eyes, plastered to his forehead from sweat. I wanted to brush it out of the way, even though we all knew it would end up right back where it was in the first place.

I couldn't.

I was scared to touch him, terrified that it would bring on another flashback or hallucination or whatever-it-was, even if he looked to be thoroughly out cold.

I loved him and wanted to help, but how could I if I couldn't even touch him?

\--

Poseidon

It's not often that anyone raises their voice to me, and certainly not Apollo. The boy's been a bit feather-brained his whole life, flippant and jovial and cocky through everything. He barely ever gets angry, and when he does… well, it's best not to be the thing that angered him.

This being said, I figured that he wasn't actually angry at me. Okay, yes, I should not have snapped. Apollo was doing his best for Percy's sake, even crippled in his work by the curse of Achilles and the destruction of half his infirmary. I had been stressed. I was still stressed. We all were on edge.

Apollo was pissed, but not at me. Not at Annabeth, either. I'd wanted to be angry with her, but then I'd seen the way her eyes welled up when he looked at Percy as she packed the snow around him, and I couldn't bring myself to be cruel to her. She was a smart girl, and probably understood all the implications of her actions without me informing her at volume. She was kicking herself enough as it was.

There was nothing I could do here. I was no healer. There was nothing for me to do until Percy awoke, and even then, I'd probably be useless. There were nurses under Apollo's charge here, and they were certainly more capable of caring for Percy than I was. I didn't want to leave, though. Selfish, I know. I'd interfered this much, though, and letting go now was… too difficult.

I stood and left the room without a word, leaving the three of them to stew in their silence. I would take a breather where no accusing eyes were aimed my way.

It was an out-of-the-way room that no-one was in, barely a hall away from Percy's room. There was no chance of my getting lost, I suppose.

I was about to sit down when my idiot, self-absorbed brother showed up. The self-absorbed part didn't really differentiate between them, but the idiot part cleared up all misunderstandings.

Zeus, in case you missed it.

"Poseidon!" he growled out. "What have you done?"

"Took my boy on a field trip to see where Daddy works," I said dryly.

"You've broken our rules. Interference with our children is not tolerated." I suppose I should have given him credit for getting complete sentences out, his rage was so intense.

"Right, right. Like turning Thalia into a tree was a hands-off policy all the way," I said. Hair-thin lightning bolts sprouted from Zeus's hair, stretching up to meet to lightbulbs and exploding them.

"You dare be sarcastic with me right now? I'm not sure you understand the severity of what you've-"

I'd had it. "I don't understand? Can I really have heard that correctly, dear brother? I'm the one who doesn't understand? Well, let me clue you in on something you don't understand: my boy is dying. He was stolen from me. He begged for help and I was unable to give it until it was already too late. I'm doing what I can now and I will cast Olympus down myself before I let you or anyone else stop me. Have I made myself abundantly clear? Shall I etch it into stone for you?"

"You forget your place," Zeus hissed.

"And you forget yours. You are a father, too. You've broken our laws to help them, and we're all expected to take it without a word. Recall why you broke your own rules, and then understand that I, being less reckless than you, would not go around fucking rules sideways for paltry, petty reasons. This is not a game to me, and if my son's life is a game to you, then we are finished here, now and for always."

Zeus's face was stony and indecipherable. "This is not over. We will discuss it in the halls of Olympus. Your conduct here will be carefully monitored so we can verify the severity of your transgressions. I'm going to nail your ass to the wall for this, Poseidon. You don't get to yell at me."

And then he was gone.

Good riddance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): Even as a child, I thought Zeus was a prick. PJO has not really challenged that belief at all.
> 
> I still have no idea where the plot is going right now. It kind of has a mind of its own, odd as that sounds.
> 
> SUPERNATURAL TONIGHT SUPERNATURAL TONIGHT OH MY GOODNESS AND CAS IS BACK AW YISS SING IT WITH ME Y'ALL  
> ALSO DRAGONS: RIDERS OF BERK SEASON FINALE TONIGHT WHY IS EVERYTHING FABULOUS ON WEDNESDAYS AND CHAHARSHANBE SURI TO BOOT HOLY SHIT


	12. No-One Appreciates My Stellar Sense of Humour Except for My Mother, and She Doesn't Really Count

Percy

I was cold. So cold. Just my body, though. My head felt like there was a fire inside my skull that wanted out, pressing against the backs of my eyes until I felt like screaming and slamming my head into a wall until the pressure let up. My breath stuttered in my chest, which felt tight and constricted and still hurt like a bitch. Broken ribs are not things to be laughed at. Well, except… the pain wasn't just where I'd gotten smacked around; it was everywhere. There had to be something more to it than just a broken bone or two. That pain was sharp and localised. This pain was widespread.

I also couldn't get any frickin' air. I mean, I love air. I recommend it highly to all of my friends. But no matter how deep a breath I tried to suck in, it just wasn't enough. It was like my lungs weren't working properly.

Great. Like I needed something else to be wrong with me. I must've been some kind of major whackjob in a past life to get this kind of karma. No way it was just bad luck, although I had that in spades as well.

I didn't want to open my eyes. They hurt so damn much, like if I opened my eyelids, the eyeballs themselves would fly out of my head from all the pressure just behind them. Super-gross mental image, I know. My head was still swimming from fever, never mind that my fingers and toes now felt like they were freezing solid, along with my butt, although I had no intention of lingering on that thought. I didn't think I could get up if I tried, and to be frank, I didn't want to get up. Getting up required effort. Effort required energy. Energy required air. I was a bit short on that at the moment.

I remembered Apollo… or was it Dad? Somebody, at any rate, had told me about using that oxygen tank as a water tank to heal up my messed-up lung. Well, what happened to the oxygen? A little air could do me very nicely. Maybe I could actually get a breath in with the proper equipment.

All the other times I'd woken up, people had been talking. That, or they started chatting up a storm the minute they found out that I was coming to. Where was everyone now? I probably wouldn't be able to pick up a word of it, but the sounds of friendly voices go a long way to making me feel safe. I liked feeling safe. It didn't happen often.

Well, that was a depressing sentence.

Maybe I could just wiggle around a little so they knew I wasn't dead or anything. Then they'd start talking and I could be lulled back to sleep by their voices, so I wouldn't be fighting awful headaches and stomach aches (still hungry like a bear after hibernation, and phlegm on an empty stomach is one more complication I don't want or need) and broken ribs and what was probably burgeoning pneumonia or bronchitis or something else nasty that messed up breathing. Then Annabeth would hold my hand and Dad would feel my forehead and Apollo would get me that very nice oxygen mask and I could pass out again. Damn, but my butt was freezing. Where had they imported a portion of frozen tundra from? More importantly, why? Whose bright idea had this been? My head was the part of me that was overheated the most, not my… erm, extremities.

"Hey, I think he's… He might be waking up," Apollo's voice said.

'Bout friggin' time, you unobservant twits.

\--

Annabeth

"Percy?" Apollo asked. I held my breath. "You awake?"

An odd groan that was made up more of clicking noises than anything else came from Percy's throat. Good enough for me.

I couldn't help myself. "Percy? Baby, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I just need to know you're okay now. Do you know what's going on?"

His brow furrowed and his mouth twisted to one side in his typical snark face. "'Sc'ld," he slurred.

"I know, Perc'. Your fever was way too high. We had to cool you down somehow."

Percy made that clicking groan again. Suddenly, I could hear it catch in his throat. His entire body tensed and his eyes shot open. He turned his head to the side as his whole body convulsed, wet, painful coughs resounding in the small room. Every time I thought he might be done, he would draw in a fresh breath of air in a gasp, and then the whole thing would start over again. When the fit finally slowed and then stopped, I could swear I heard a tiny whimper out of Percy. I didn't blame him; it seemed like he was having a horrible time getting any air at all in addition to how much his ribs must have been hurting.

Poseidon drew Apollo off to the side. "I thought the water fixed his lungs," he whispered, trying to keep from alarming Percy.

"It did," Apollo said.

"Then what is this? He shouldn't still be coughing."

"You said the house was old? In bad shape?" Apollo asked, turning to me. I nodded. "Did you ever see the air filters?"

"Air filters? No! I mean, we kind of had priorities at the time," I said, jerking my head in Percy's direction. Seriously, what the hell? My boyfriend was almost dying at the time and he expected me to run around making small home repairs?

"Well, if they haven't been cleaned in a very long time…" Apollo winced. "Well, I was really hoping this wouldn't happen. The fever isn't just from allergies. I think the first wave of it might've been, but it should never have gotten as high as it did." I nodded. That made sense. "His chest pain might also not be entirely due to the broken ribs."

Apollo took a deep breath. "Gunk from dirty filters ends up in the air, and then it can get lodged in lungs where it doesn't belong, and sometimes that gunk has some very annoying hitchhikers. Long story short, I think he has bacterial pneumonia."

Well, shit.

"He is already so weak," Poseidon muttered. "He's not in any kind of shape to fight off a bacterial infection.

"You're telling me. There is a little bit of good news, though, in that the antibiotics we've got lying around come in pill form, so we can actually give him medication. While we're at it, pain meds probably wouldn't go amiss, either. He's sounding like he needs 'em."

"Can you take those on an empty stomach?" I asked.

Both gods stared at me. Oh, no. There was no way.

Did they really forget that humans needed food?

Judging by the flurry of movement that erupted after that as both gods ran to get the necessary medications and, I could only assume, sustenance, they really honest-to-goodness had. It would have been funny if it weren't so chilling. How long had Percy been without food? It had been almost two whole days since he'd been kidnapped (and oh, how it felt much, much longer than 48 stupid little hours). Had his captors ever given him food? Even if they had tried, I could picture it being something really awful, something even starving teenaged boys wouldn't touch. Also, Percy had his pride. Even if he felt that he were really dying, all too easily I could see him turning up his nose at anything they tried to give him. He was smarter than accepting food from sketchy sources, anyway.

Apollo got back first with the medications, various antibiotics in one hand and what was probably Percoset in the other. Poseidon wasn't far behind, bearing nectar and ambrosia bread.

The healer god glared at the offerings. "Those raise the core temperatures of humans. Normally it's harmless up 'til a certain point, but your kid's been battling one humdinger of a fever. You sure those are good idea?" Poseidon paled and went to put them back.

"I'll handle this. Do you have a kitchen?" I asked. Apollo nodded and gave me directions.

When I got there, it was more of a kitchenette than anything else. It would seem the gods didn't do a lot of cooking. Luckily, the small ice box and a cabinet housed almost everything I needed.

My father was never much of a cook, but he knew his way around a few dishes of comfort food. I grabbed rice, chicken, apples, garlic, honey, butter, bouillon, milk, cider, and flour and got to work. I'd be leaving out an ingredient or two but I figured I'd be okay. Not half an hour later I was finished.

Knocking on the door to Percy's wing with one hand, I poked a head in. Percy had been taken out of the ice pack and put back in his bed, looking considerably less flushed than he had before. Was he shivering a little? My jaw tightened a little. They'd probably left him in there too long. No. No, I wasn't supposed to be getting mad. Apollo had told us how uncertain the whole process was, how difficult it was to gauge exactly how long to leave anyone in. It wasn't like they had a damn timer go off as soon as it was time to take Percy out.

My seat was suspiciously warm when I sat down. Poseidon. I'd bet my beads on it. It surprised me, to be honest. He'd purposely spent time by his son's side, but so willingly vacated in order to let me be next to him? Either Poseidon held me in high regard, or maybe he wasn't half so entitled in his thinking as most other gods were. I almost began to understand how Percy came to be so close to his father. They were alike in some unexpected ways.

"Percy?" I asked, soft. His eyelids flickered and he rolled his head towards me. "Think you can sit up a little straighter to eat?"

Should've known. He shot up like a damn mouse trap at the word eat, then promptly crashed back against the headboard, coughing weakly and curling protectively around his ribs.

"Don't say it," he rasped out. "I already know I'm stupid."

I nodded. "A good thing to know. You gonna sit up more carefully this time?" He nodded, unwilling to speak more with his breathing so messed up. "Here, come on. Are you okay with a hand on your back? I'm going to help you sit up." His eyes darkened for a quick second, and I wondered exactly how much of his earlier flashback/hallucination he remembered. But then he nodded uncertainly, taking as deep a breath as he could and bracing for the pain that was bound to accompany the motion of sitting up. I put the bowl aside and placed a hand on his back and shoulder, easing him up as slowly as I was capable. He hissed the tiniest amount, which was really the best we could have hoped for. "Are you good? I didn't hurt you?"

He flashed me a weak grin. "'M'okay." I couldn't help but smile back. My boyfriend was just plain ridiculous. World ending? Have a good laugh about it. Assassins? Offer them a danish and a hug. Dying? Crack jokes from the floor. It was probably the defence mechanism to end all defence mechanisms, but that didn't make it any less ridiculous.

"I've got some chicken and rice with apples here," I said. "If your stomach can't handle this, you're pretty much doomed." He nodded, eyes sparkling at the challenge. I was being serious, but he took the whole thing like a joke. Ridiculous. My little idiot.

And then the little shit opened his mouth.

Waiting.

"The hell do you think I'm going to do, spoon-feed you?" I asked, trying for indignant.

The over-acted pitiful look on his face said it all.

"You're milking this for all it's worth, aren't you?"

A blank smile that reminded me of the Stoll brothers whenever we caught them doing something they shouldn't be doing, devious and unrepentant.

"Fine! Fine, be that way. I can't believe I'm doing this, but on the off chance I should need to guilt you into doing something in the future, you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to bring this up. At volume," I warned.

"I love you," he said.

I couldn't tell if that was his puppy-dog cajoling tone or his serious one.

He still got spoon-fed his stupid food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): I made art. On dA, I'm nadeshiko-tenshi and it's the first deviation in my gallery.
> 
> The recipe really exists, although it needs soy sauce, which I didn't think Greek gods would have just lying around. It's really good comfort food. I kind of invented it once when I was bored.


	13. Things Simultaneously Get Better and Worse

Percy

Okay, considering that he's the god of prophecy, Apollo's foresight is shitty.

A week.

A whole week.

Parked on my useless ass in the Olympian version of a hospital wing, feeling like I was dying either from the pneumonia or worse, boredom. There were times at Camp Half-Blood that I forgot that I was ADHD, and then things like this happened that made me want to punch babies. I couldn't even play video games to pass the time because my stupid wrist was sprained something awful.

Breathing, as it had been for the week before that, was difficult. Pneumonia makes it so fluid accumulates in your lungs. Gravity makes that fluid pool at the bottom of your lungs. Guess where the cells are that take oxygen from the air and dissolve it into your bloodstream? The bottom of your lungs. So, actually getting oxygen from breathing is way harder with pneumonia, which is why hospitals want you in a bed, lying down, with an oxygen mask. Guess who didn't figure on pneumonia and basically trashed the only oxygen tank in the facility? Your favourite god of prophecy and mine, Apollo. You'd think that would mean he would've seen this coming, but no.

Not to sound ungrateful or anything. He saved my life. He was putting up with me, and had been for a week straight. There aren't many people who can do that, particularly when I'm grouchy and irritable and bored. Apollo had been wonderfully patient with me, so I tried to shut up about the oxygen tank. After all, the whole water-in-place-of-oxygen thing worked out okay. It took a lot more effort than the oxygen tank would have, but at least I could breathe.

It was only when I had the water mask on that my throat healed up enough for speech. Each coughing fit tore my throat to shreds. At one point I'd been whining to Annabeth and she told me that it was probably a sign from the universe to shut up for once. Normally I would have been offended, but it was a good enough point at the time that I let it slide. That, and she was just looking out for me, because speech was part of what triggered the coughing fits in the first place.

The fever went down a little and bounced around the 101-102o range for the rest of the week. I still had hot and cold flashes and was generally miserable, but at least I didn't get dizzy from turning my head. I also did not talk gibberish or have hallucinations.

And that was part of what ate at me the most.

Annabeth was there for me every single day of it. She slept in the bed next to mine (I insisted that she wear a surgical mask to prevent her from catching it, what with pneumonia being contagious and all) and sent updates back and forth to Camp Half-Blood and my mom almost daily. She made me food and sat through all my whining. She stayed with me even though I wasn't awake very often, simply because being conscious was exhausting. If I could have fallen in love with her any more, I would have.

She wouldn't touch me anywhere but my hand, though. Wouldn't help me change clothes. Got a pale look on her face and left the room whenever Apollo or I mentioned a need for such a thing. If I reached out to touch her, she didn't flinch away, but whenever one of her hands would move towards me, she would pause and then yank it back.

I barely remembered the first few hours of my stay in the infirmary. My fever had been so high, I'd been delirious. They'd – quite literally – had to put me on ice just to make it go down to an acceptable range. I had been dying when they found me, my brain cooking from the heat. As such, the whole cataloguing of memories went a little awry and I had bupkis. Well, almost. Annabeth refused to tell me what happened, what I had done, what I had said, but the way she acted around me told me everything I needed to know.

I must have had some kind of… flashback. Like some kind of trauma victim in shock. I hated that. I was a hero, not a victim. This wasn't the way the world was supposed to work. I didn't want anyone's stupid pity, because I was going to beat this thing into submission. I didn't have post-traumatic stress disorder or anything like that. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't crying my eyes out or hiding under the bed and I knew what reality was perfectly well, thank you. But sometimes I got that scared look from Annabeth like she wasn't as sure about my sanity as I was, and that scared the living crap out of me. Whatever happened that I didn't remember, it must have been serious. I must have been full-on freaking out, thinking I was back with – nope, not thinking about that. No; if I had to prove to people that I was okay, I needed to get past it. Put it behind me. Couldn't dwell on it. I certainly wasn't going to go on about my feelings or dreams to anyone who wasn't a shrink.

The worst part was the uncertainty in her face. And the pain. I think she genuinely thought that I thought she was a threat. I knew Annabeth would never hurt me. I knew that. She loved me, and I saw that in every little look, every hesitant touch, every word she said to me. Even when she was telling me to shut up. Especially when she was telling me to shut up. I'd hurt her to make her think this way. Whatever I'd done or said, it had hurt her, and I couldn't begin to forgive myself for that. I'd caused Annabeth pain, and that was unforgiveable. I couldn't even remember having done it.

I tried to touch her, to show her that it was okay, that it wasn't going to freak me out. It had just been the delirium from earlier. She still avoided physical contact like the plague, unless it was hand-holding. She wouldn't go any further than that. I could understand not kissing me (ew, sick germs), but we used to be big on hugs and soft touches and just little stuff like that. Not anymore. And what was with ditching as soon as I tried to change clothes? She's seen me naked before (don't ask, because I'm not telling) and she'd never acted like she was scared of bare skin before. Most mornings, I went around camp in a bathing suit and nothing else, so it wasn't like people weren't used to me wearing precious little. Maybe it was the bruises, which were healing nicely but still clearly visible when the bandaging holding my ribs in place were unwound. Maybe they reminded her that I was fucking weak. That's what they said to me, at least. Maybe she hated seeing me as a victim every bit that I did.

I just wanted things to go back to normal. I wanted to go back home and breathe normally and then we could all pretend that this never happened.

Right, like that's healthy.

\--

Poseidon

My brother had called a meeting of the Olympians. I wasn't stupid or naïve enough that I didn't know what the meeting was about. My brother was intent on having his revenge.

It had been a week, over the course of which Percy had been steadily improving, although he was still so weak that he could barely make it a few steps out of bed without needing to sit down almost immediately. Luckily, his ribs and wrist were healing up with no hitches. His illness could only be defeated with time and patience. But time might not be a thing we had.

I had spoken against Zeus. I had ranted and railed against him to his face. My brother was nothing if not a vindictive little shit. Because I had defied him, he would take it out on Percy, and now was his golden opportunity to do so. He was going to point a finger at me and say some sort of nonsense about how irresponsible I was, and how I was ruining everything, and how I'd bring civilisation crashing down around our ears like he usually did. Splendid. And then he'd find some way to blame this on Percy, or the relationship I had with him. Yes, most gods truly did love their children, but I was the only one to actively do something about it, which somehow translated as me breaking all the rules – the unwritten rules that no-one was under any obligation to obey in the first place.

Sure enough, ten minutes into the meeting, I'd rolled my eyes so many times I was surprised they didn't just give up and escape their sockets entirely.

"Olympians," Zeus began, "I have gathered you here today to discuss the grievous crimes that have been perpetrated in our midst." Next time I went out shopping, I'd get him one of those plastic tiaras that had 'drama queen' painted on it.

Anxious murmuring broke out immediately. Athena's face hardened as she looked towards me, staring with those piercing eyes of hers. Oh, yes, she definitely already knew. She knew the rules were ridiculous just as well as I did, but she would hardly pass up an opportunity to stick it to me. Ares looked more aggressive than usual, but didn't speak, which made me think it was defensive. He probably did something that actually deserved the 'grievous crime' title and didn't want to think he'd gotten caught. Hades looked delighted that somebody else was going to get it for once. Artemis rolled her eyes, knowing her father's penchant for drama. Apollo flashed me a concerned, guilty look. I might've glossed over the details of my exchange with his father when I told him. The poor boy looked like he had his hand caught in a cookie jar. Aphrodite plucked away at a split end. Demeter did her best to look interested in the proceedings, but by no means was. Hermes… was that a Nintendo DS? How had he smuggled that in Olympus?

"My fellow gods, we are all aware of our children, and the laws governing our involvement in their affairs," Zeus said. Hermes sat up straighter and began paying attention. Ever since Luke, he'd taken the issue of demigods very seriously. "We are not permitted to coddle our children, nor to live their lives for them, or defeat their enemies for them. We do not meddle. We keep our distance, and in doing so, protect the half-bloods and ourselves." Some gods nodded. Some looked uncomfortable. "My brother Poseidon has broken this most ancient of rules."

All eyes turned to me. Let them look. I had done nothing wrong.

"What have you to say for yourself?" Zeus demanded, eyes flashing.

"I have-"

Zeus cut me off. "Humans and demigods die; this is an unequivocal rule of the universe, and as gods we have no reason to meddle in that rule. You have blatantly ignored this fact and gone ahead anyway, interfering in the life of one Perseus Jackson beyond the acceptable limits. Far beyond."

"He was dying!" I said.

"He was mortal, and mortals die. It's what they do. Why should you care?" Zeus asked.

"He is my son, and just because I'm nowhere near as heartless as you-"

"My heart has nothing to do with this conversation. We have laws. We must not become too closely attached to our mortal offspring, and yet you have obviously broken that law. You interfered in the boy's life and then brought him here to Olympus for a full week, now." More murmuring broke out. A triumph smile bloomed on the faces of both Zeus and Athena. Maybe saving Percy hadn't angered too many, but keeping him in Olympus had probably tipped the scales for those who would have been on the fence.

"You are all aware he bears the curse of Achilles. Mortal hospitals cannot treat him," I said.

"He should have thought of that before jumping in the Styx then, hm?" Hades said. I could have punched him. "And besides, if he managed to get himself hurt despite the curse of Achilles, doesn't he deserve to die for such incredible incompetence?"

"That's a good point actually – what was so strong that it knocked the munchkin for two?" Ares asked. "Is it still kicking? Can I go fight it?"

"It is dead," I said shortly. "It was a demon of the new religion."

"Another transgression!" Zeus howled, pointing an accusing finger at me. I could think of a few choice things he could do with that finger. "We must never interact with those of the new religion! To break this law in addition? Surely you all agree that he must be punished."

"He only wanted to protect his family," Hera mused.

"And therein lies the problem! Mortal children bring nothing but trouble, causing chaos and rifts between gods, religions, and each other.

"Henceforth, no contact shall be made between gods and their mortal children outside of claimings."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): Next chapter's the last chapter, and then on to the sequel, which will probably be more of a oneshot that fixes an unresolved plotline about the Winchesters.
> 
> Percy is very critical of himself. Any hint of weakness about himself and he'll pick at that scab until it scars. He would definitely approach mental disorders in the worst way possible - that is to say, waffling back and forth between hating himself for having them in the first place, and ignoring their existence entirely. Just because his personality pops up so easily in my head, his part of the chapter went smooth like butter. Zeus is much harder to write, so his parts took FOREVER.
> 
> DOCTOR WHO IS BACK TODAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYY  
> ALSO SUPERNATURAL IS GOING TO KILL MY EMOTIONS NEXT WEEK


	14. I've Been Tortured Enough Time For One Lifetime, Thanks

Annabeth

Probably the most satisfying part of the week was when Sally told me to go read the newspaper. I did. "Serial Killer/Rapist Found Dead in Home – Accomplice Arrested" was a pretty good headline, all things considered. Granted, the article under it mentioned some worrying things that I then relayed to Percy – things like evidence of Percy's blood at the crime scene, or the lack of gunpowder residue from where Percy had shot not a bullet, but water through the guy's brainpan. Forensics was confused about that, but they were mostly looking for the victim. For Percy. Anybody who'd been looking through recent Missing Persons reports would know that Percy went missing in the right timeframe, and that could lead to some awkward questions, particularly if they found his home address and started asking Sally and Paul exactly where Percy had been for the last nine days. Media attention for demigods is never a good thing. Still, it was nice to hear that the suckers were either dead or spending life in prison. Shame New York didn't have the death penalty. I didn't like the idea of my future taxes keeping one of my boyfriend's abusers alive. Oh, well.

Percy suddenly sat bolt upright from where he'd been lying back against the pillows, jerking me from my thoughts. He bent his face forward to the let the water in his mask drain before unhooking it.

"What? What's wrong?" I asked.

Percy, knowing fully well he was forbidden from speaking until his lungs were in better condition, pointed urgently to the open doorway. I began to reach for my knife before he shook his head and made calming hand motions at me. Friends, then.

Poseidon came crashing down the hall and slung himself into the room like a tidal wave, Apollo shortly behind.

"It's Zeus," Poseidon snapped. "He's coming for you now. Quickly, we have to get Percy back home."

"What the-? I don't understand; why would Zeus-"

"Retaliation. I got short with him and now he has forbidden all contact between Olympus and Camp Half-Blood. That includes you and Percy. He's going to evict you," Poseidon said, ignoring Percy's attempts to stand up himself and scooping his son up in his arms.

"He can't do that!" I gasped. I knew it was a stupid thing to say even before I said it. Of course he could, and he would. Zeus was a five-year-old with power, not that I would ever say it out loud.

"He can and he is," Apollo said. "I'm sorry. We're going to try to do what we can. Just bear with it for now. We'll fix this; don't worry."

Poseidon raced down the hallway with me just behind, somehow managing to keep Percy still so as not to agitate his ribs.

"Dad, how-"

"Shh. I'm sorry, Percy, but your throat isn't healed, yet. We have to get you back home safely, or Zeus will be likely to give you a less pleasant passage home. He is… livid. I'm not taking any chances. Not with you." Percy swallowed visibly, but nodded. An angry Zeus was not something to be messed with.

That was something that bothered me, actually. Whenever we'd been in Olympus before the council, most major decisions had been made via vote. I couldn't imagine the other gods wanting to cut themselves off from their children, meaning a vote had never been taken – Zeus was playing dictator, and doing it so as to condemn demigod children to isolation.

"We're all dead," I muttered.

"We'll fix it before then, hopefully," Apollo said.

"Are you certain? Can you honestly promise me that no half-bloods are going to die between now and then because they can't ask their parents for help? How many are going to be slaughtered before Z- before he figures out that this is a bad idea?" Saying Zeus's name in a bad context was just asking to be hit by lightning.

Apollo didn't answer, which was really all the answer I needed.

As we made our way towards the gates of Olympus, Poseidon looked back at me. "We will do everything in our power to prevent that. In the meantime, take extra precautions. You and Percy are going to have to offer your help to all other demigods in order to prevent deaths. Protect them, if you can. Reduce the number of quests. Try to stay safe until we can change my brother's mind."

"And what if you can't?"

Poseidon's face tightened. "Then I'll be breaking a few more laws, now won't I?"

"Poseidon," Apollo warned.

"I know." I could see his grip on Percy tighten slightly.

Percy himself looked halfway between panicked and resigned, leaning more towards the latter. There was some anger and indignation in there, too, but he seemed too weakened to really do anything about either one. Even this long without the benefit of the water mask was taxing on his system.

We'd reached the gates, the doors of the elevator looming.

Gingerly, Poseidon set Percy down on his feet, with me supporting him from the other side. Percy's mouth tightened. I knew he hated being treated like an invalid, but it was just for the time being. The last week had been the worst of all on him. Percy had a little bit of a complex about seeming weak, particularly in front of his father, and it had been rubbing him raw all this time. He had to be going half-crazy from it all.

"Annabeth, Apollo," Poseidon said carefully, "could you please leave us for a moment?"

I nodded, and Apollo did the same.

"I'll head back to the infirmary," Apollo said. "Try to buy you some time."

"Thank you."

I went off a ways, situating myself behind a pillar of the gate. It looked like it should be far enough to inhibit eavesdropping, but the architecture had perfect acoustics that all but ensured it. I should have felt a bit bad about it, but I really didn't. Not when I was unceremoniously being dumped out on the street along with my deathly-ill boyfriend just because my grandfather had a stupid temper tantrum. I was owed some kind of insider knowledge after this, damn it all.

Poseidon started. "Percy, I know that it wasn't that long ago that you turned sixteen, and the Great Prophecy was brought to completion. Not even a full year. Please hear me out. If we cannot convince my brother that he's doing more harm than his pride will ever forgive, then this… this fit of his could last longer than I can even estimate. Obviously, we're going to do all we can to prevent that, but there are no guarantees. You know this. My brother is fickle and selfish and he thinks his pride has been wounded and that you and I both need be taught a lesson.

"Please, my son. You know I love you more than any child before you. Mortal lifespans are very short to us, and your uncle's temper could last for the remainder of your life. If you were to die before I can fix this, I would never recover. Please. I know you said all those months ago that you didn't want immortality. While I can't offer you immortality without a consensus of the rest of the Olympians, I can offer you longevity and a place with me for the few hundred years you would gain as a result. I cannot lose you. Please." My heart froze. He wouldn't take that offer, would he? He wouldn't leave me alone like that, right?

Percy's scraped-raw voice was difficult to make out. "Dad, I'm sorry, but I can't do that. The whole point of my rejecting immortality was that I didn't want to watch the people I love die around me. Sounds more like mental torture than a gift. I'm sor-" His voice dissolved into a painful-sounding coughing fit. I heard the small thud as his knees gave out and he fell into his father.

"No, I'm sorry. I should have known. I never meant to… I'm sorry, Percy. Please, then, be safe. I'm going to do everything I can to stop this insanity. I'm not going to lose you as easily as that," Poseidon said.

I couldn't see from behind my pillar, but I could imagine him holding Percy in a hug, careful of his injuries. It hurt to think about.

There were days when I was happy that Percy had that great relationship with his godly parent that the rest of us didn't, and then there were days when I was seethingly jealous. I couldn't figure out which one I felt at the moment.

"Trust Annabeth to look after you. She has my full approval, although her mother is petty and vindictive as the krill is small." I wasn't sure what to make of that statement. I felt like I should be offended, but then, I was not my mother. Plus, she could be petty and vindictive. I knew my mythology.

"Annabeth? You may come out," Poseidon said.

I did, and pretended like I'd heard nothing. "And we're going to be able to hail a cab from the lobby?" I asked.

"I'll arrange it," Poseidon said.

"Thank you, sir." I glanced quickly at Percy to see if he needed help standing, but he looked like he would reject my help if I offered it. He was also pretty steady on his feet for once, so that was something. Maybe the whole thing was finally behind us.

"Good luck, and may the gods be with you again soon," Poseidon called after us as the doors of the elevator closed.

\--

Camp Half-Blood didn't take the news well. There was panic, of course. Some relief that Mr. D had skipped town as soon as Zeus's orders had come down the line. But mostly panic.

It made sense. On quests, when everything went wrong and you were staring death in the face? You called your godly parent and prayed. Boom – you were saved if your parent cared in the least. Needed help with anything, really? Pray to your parent. Even if we pretended like we were autonomous beings, most demigods were barely functional without that omnipresent sense of guidance that pervaded the camp. Every cabin inherently strove to follow parental example, and now that vague guidance had been removed entirely. We were adrift in an ocean.

And, just like the metaphor, Percy seemed to be the only one comfortable with the situation.

"Dad'll fix it," he said with confidence. His voice was sounding much better. He still croaked like a frog, and coughed like a maelstrom, and had to take a nap every few hours, but at least he wasn't hooked up to machines or masks or strapped down to a bed.

"Maybe, but what do we do in the meantime?" I asked.

"Tough it out. Same as always."

Easy for him to say. His father's domain of Atlantis was under the ocean, which meant that while Poseidon was forbidden from going to see Percy, Percy could always sneak into Atlantis to see his dad. Most gods lived in Olympus, and with Olympus closed, we had a few problems that Percy didn't. He hadn't gone to see his father, but at least he still had the option in a crisis.

"We need to triple protection, I think. No leaving camp on quests – only escort groups for new half-bloods. Agreed?" I asked.

Percy nodded. "Chiron," he said. His throat must be bothering him again if he was resorting to one-word sentences.

"Yeah, we should let him in on it, too. He'll probably agree, though." Percy nodded again.

"Protection? Numbers?" he asked.

I tried to translate. "Are you asking how we're going to send retrieval units when we've only got so many campers who actually know their way around real-world battle situations?" A nod. "Erm…" Shit. I hadn't thought of that.

Satyrs already had their hands and hooves full locating demigods and bringing them to camp. Before, we'd had the (morally objectionable) policy of using this as something of a test – the ones that made it through the journey alive were deemed worthy enough to attend. Those who died along the way weren't really honoured at all. I'd always found the concept barbaric, especially knowing that I'd only made it to camp alive because of Luke and Thalia. I hated thinking that I was only still alive because of sheer dumb luck. It was too fragile, too tenuous a connection to life to think about.

After the war with Kronos, we'd lost so very many campers. Our numbers hadn't been cut in half, but it was a near thing. We needed all the new half-bloods we could get to repopulate the camp, and we couldn't risk them dying while en route anymore. That meant a bunch of different competent dispatch teams ready to go at a moment's notice.

Even then, we would lose new ones. Some, the satyrs wouldn't get to in time. I hated that part of the system, too. Satyrs weren't able to protect demigods; they weren't really fighters. Even the crazy ones who could appreciate battle weren't necessarily good at it. They worked as a temporary distraction at best, and if a demigod didn't know how to protect themselves, which most didn't, then it was often all over right then and there.

We needed better locaters. Fighters. People who could really look out for these kids without letting them know the details until it was unavoidable. The satyrs could sniff a demigod out well enough, but we needed something tougher to watch their backs until a retrieval team could be sent out.

Off in the distance, I spotted a deer in between the trees.

That was odd.

Normally there weren't any deer in those woods.

I smiled.

"I think I have just the thing," I said. I probably sounded smug as anything.

"Hm?" Percy asked.

"How much do you know about Hunters?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N): And that's the end of this particular fic. On to the sequel! The sequel will, as implied, heavily feature Sam and Dean. You're probably going to have to know more about SPN to get that one, for all that I'm planning on telling it third-person-limited for Percy in the first parts.
> 
> Happy Easter and April Fools' Day!

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this thing over the last month, give or take. I've never seen a SPN/PJO crossover before, despite the obvious parallels, so I figured 'what the hell'. I'm currently working on a sequel, and once that's finished, I'll post it.
> 
> I just wish there were more of these crossovers wandering around, you know? I've seen dozens of tumblr posts about the parallels, but nobody wrote a fic. Colour me depressed and lonely.


End file.
